BY TIMOTHY AGBOR
A former Minority Leader in the Osun State House of Assembly, Akinwale Akinwole, has advised the Minister of Interior, Rauf Aregbesola, to accept the fact that a former Deputy Governor of the state, Iyiola Omisore, “has come to stay” as a member of the ruling All Progressives Congress.
Akinwale gave the advice in a statement in Osogbo on Monday, in reaction to an earlier address by Aregbesola, while the latter was revalidating his membership of the APC at his Ifofin Ward, in Ilesa, last Friday.
He alleged that the Interior Minister was threatened because Omisore could expose what he described as his spoiler game against the re-election of Governor Gboyega Oyetola in the next poll.
Recall that the former minority leader decamped from the Peoples Democratic Party, as a serving member of the Osun State House of Assembly in 2015, to join the APC, in the build-up to the 2018 governorship election in the state.
Aregbesola had said that no one could displace him from the APC in the state, considering his pedigree and achievements that could not be easily matched.
He warned the party against giving leadership positions to those he called questionable characters moving into its fold from other political parties.
“It will be difficult for those who lack my pedigree to displace me in the party in the state. Since my emergence in Osun on the Oranmiyan platform 17 years ago, and with others, we fought the agents of darkness and regression and firmly consolidated the party in the state. This effort has produced two successive progressive administrations in the state and also won presidential and national legislative elections thrice,” he had said.
“It is part of the democratic process for all kinds of people, especially from the PDP and other parties, even those with questionable and unedifying past, to cross into the progressive, people-centred party. However members have a moral duty to ensure that such elements do not occupy leadership positions and use it to subvert and derail the party,” the minister added.
Reacting on Monday, Akinwale said, “Aregbesola should stop feeling threatened because Omisore has come and will expose all Aregbesola’s spoiler game against the re-election of Governor Oyetola.
“The ex-governor should wake up from his slumber and accept the reality that Iyiola Omisore has come to stay in the APC because he is a founding father of the progressive party in the state.”
“He should stop being jealous of Omisore because he is a politician to compete with in Osun,” the APC stakeholder said.
