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By Seun Olawoyin
In the Osun State chapter of the All Progressives Congress, APC, it appears things have fallen apart, and unless drastic actions are taken to address the issue of gross misconduct levelled against some prominent leaders of the party in the state, the centre may not hold again.
The gross misconduct, which distinctly borders on anti-party activities of leaders of the party, was statewide. But for want of time and space, this piece will focus on Ijesha South Federal Constituency where perpetrators of anti-party didn’t only work against the interest of the party, but also advertised it and, unfortunately, continue to boast to repeat the sickening conduct if they have the opportunity in future.
The following leaders have been accused of violating the APC Constitution as to gross misconduct of anti-party activities: Busuyi Makanjuola ( Chairman, Atakumosa East Central LCDA), Wale Adedoyin ( member House of Assembly for Ilesa West), Taiwo Akeju ( Commissioner for Political Affairs and Intergovernmental Relations in the cabinet of Oyetola), Francis Ola Famurewa ( APC senatorial leader) and Samson Adesegun Olanibi, Oyetola’s Commissioner for Rural Development & Community Affairs.
Francis Ola Famurewa and Samson Segun Olanibi are reported to be the arrowheads of the plot.
Famurewa is a former chairman of Atakumosa West local government. He sought the house of assembly ticket for Atakumosa state constituency but lost. Since he lost to a more vibrant and popular candidate, the incumbent Festus Komolafe, Famurewa has gone berserk and become a bull in a china shop. All entreaties to him to bury the hatchet and work for the emergence of Komolafe fell on deaf ears.
Olaniyi, prior to his appointment as rural development commissioner by Governor Oyetola, held several positions in the administration of Rauf Aregbesola, including as the local government chairman, state treasurer of APC, Director General of Osun Rural Water & Environmental Sanitation Agency (RUWESA) and federal board member of Standard Organisation of Nigeria (SON).
His problem with Oyetola, nay the party, this writer gathered, began immediately he was appointed to the ministry of rural development and community affairs, the office he described as too inconsequential, non-juicy and incommensurate to his political credentials. Some of the people Olaniyi vented his frustration to in the closet confirmed his projection was either to man the ministry of works or the ministry of local government and chieftaincy, the touted super ministries.
From this period, sources said, his loyalty and commitment to his principal became to wane. He became notorious for creating negative stories about the government and person of Oyetola.
” Hon. Olanibi was always telling us about how his ministry was dry and the frustration he experienced to access fund outside his monthly salary, ” an anonymous source close to the former commissioner volunteered some explanation.
Another source equally quoted Olanibi as always calling Oyetola “stingy” each time he expressed his regret to associates for accepting the commissioner appointment.
However, it was learnt that his anti-party relationship with the PDP started before the 2022 governorship election (when he was first suspected of selling strategic information of the government to the Peoples Democratic Party), but his distasteful conduct only became pronounced towards the 2023 elections when he sensed all hopes of retreiving the governorship mandate of Oyetola had been foreclosed.
In the governorship election, Oyetola lost scandalously in Olanibi’s ward. And a similar woeful performance was recorded in the national assembly polls in 2023 where he and other disgruntled leaders in the area transfered their support base to their new fortress, Peoples Democratic Party.
Prior to the presidential and national assembly elections, it was established that Olanibi held in his Ibadan hotel a number of meetings with the PDP House of Representatives Candidate for Ijesa South, Sanya Omirin, where PDP Senatorial Candidate for Osun East, Senator Ade Fadahunsi and Omirin were adopted as his choices in the elections.
Olanibi, and other double dealers previously listed, provided the needed strategy that undermined the success of the All Progressives Congress in the federal constituency, including the advisory about leaders of the party that should be taken “out of circulation” for the PDP to have a headway in the contest. And that was the exact strategy the power grabbing party implemented in all the recent elections, House of Assembly election inclusive.
They unleashed their hoodlums to maim, kill and run supporters of the APC out of town. No fewer than 20 APC members in Ijesaland lost their lives before the polls. Those who escaped by the whiskers have got bitter experience to relay.
The coordinated attacks on the APC members were done with clinical precision and many political analysts believe these would not have been possible if not for connivance of betrayers in APC.
Meanwhile, since completion of the general elections and emergence of Asiwaju Bola Tinubu as president-elect, many of the judases in APC have refined their double-faced tactics. While they still maintain their surreptitious collaboration with the PDP, they also keep a straight face with the APC, scheming to hijack the structure of the party and throw the party into eternal destabilisation to the advantage of their new political partners.
The mass of the decent party members who kept fate to the progressive ideals of the party, even at the danger to their lives, are now at the loggerheads with the conspirators, calling for their immediate expulsion to instil discipline in the party. They hold that yielding further space to them to operate is capable of causing more havoc to the party, now or in future.
