After weeks of intrigues and internal wrangling, party members are out at the venue of the primary election of the Osun State chapter of the All Progressives Congress (APC) to elect their candidate for the July 16 governorship election.
Today’s primary in Osun is being followed with keen interest across the country because of the intrigues that characterised preparations leading up to exercise.
In some quarters, the gubernatorial primary has been described as a test of might between the two factions under the control of former governor Rauf Aregbesola and the incumbent Gboyega Oyetola.
In the race are three aspirants including the incumbent state governor, Adegboyega Oyetola, a former Secretary to the State Government, Moshood Adeoti and immediate past Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives, Lasun Yusuff. While Oyetola and Yusuff are from Osun Central Senatorial District, Adeoti is from Osun West Senatorial District.
Interestingly, a faction led by former governor and minister of interior, Rauf Aregbesola, and a faction of the ruling APC in the state under the chairmanship of Rasaq Salinsile is backing the candidature of a former secretary to the state government, Moshood Adeoti.
While another faction led by the incumbent Governor is supported by the national leader of the party, Bola Ahmed Tinubu and the state executive of the party under the chairmanship of Adegboyega Famodun.
Tinubu and Aregbesola have been political allies for decades. Tinubu, a former governor of Lagos State, was instrumental to Aregbesola’s election as governor in 2010.
However, the two men have since fallen apart over what Aregbesola claims is an attempt to erase his legacies in the state by the Oyetola administration.
Consequently, Aregbesola vowed that the governor would not get a second term in office. In the last few months, Adeoti has been campaigning for the western senatorial district in the state where he hails from to get the governorship ticket after been denied severally in the past.
He said that incumbent Oyetola hails from the same senatorial zones that produced Bisi Akande and Olagunsoye Oyinola as governors in the past and that it would be an injustice if Osun West is continually denied the opportunity to produce the next governor.
However, in the run-up to today’s primary, frantic efforts were made by several chieftains of the APC within Lagos and other states across the country to reconcile Tinubu and Aregbesola which had not yielded any success.
In the last few days, the minister’s political associates were said to have visited him in Osun, while some other party national leaders met Tinubu in Lagos and Abuja to prevail on them to give peace a chance.
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But it appears the Minister and his faction are battle-ready for today’s primary judging by his comment some days ago while speaking with party members and his loyalists at Ijebu-Jesa ahead of today’s exercise.
The Minister said that the present administration in the state has deviated from the progressive rules of the party, insisting that the APC must be returned to the hands of the true progressives who built it.
According to him, “We are ready to allow a free flow of the democratic process to interplay here. We are not those who play God. We are resolute about reclaiming our party from those who think they can continue to abuse our legacies or even want us to be second fiddles in the party we worked and laboured for. This is our pride and we will sustain it.
“Do not be disturbed by their threats. Come out en-masse and vote for our aspirant. In Sha Allah, Adeoti is the next governor of Osun. We must support him.”
