The All Progressives Congress, APC, in Osun State has been charged of plotting to expel Rauf Aregbesola, the state’s most recent interior minister, from the party.
The former factional youth head of the Osun APC, Abosede Oluwaseun, made the accusations in a statement on Thursday.
Oluwaseun also issued a warning that any move to suspend Aregbesola would be unsuccessful.
He claimed, “The conspiracy is being coordinated by expelled former governor Gboyega Oyetola and five of his supporters, among them is a Senator and former Speaker of the Osun State House of Assembly who lost their re-election.
He said that a young former commissioner for works and transport as well as a former commissioner for local government and chieftaincy issues were also part of the broader scheme. They are thought to have come up with the suspension proposal.
“We have it on very good authority that the APC executives in Aregbesola’s ward, Ilesa Ward 8, were forced to sign a blank piece of paper yesterday (Wednesday) under the false premise that the APC state leadership needed their commitment to the party’s advancement.
We have reliable information that an agent dispatched by Oyetola and other conspirators just handed over a sizable sum of money to the ward officials.
“We observe that when many attempts to blackmail Aregbesola were unsuccessful, Oyetola and others turned to unfairly suspending Aregbesola in order to thwart their reunification with President Bola Ahmed Tinubu.
The Osun APC, on the other hand, has refuted the accusations and denied the widely circulated rumour that Rauf Aregbesola will be suspended due to anti-party actions.
In a statement made in Osogbo on Friday, Tajudeen Lawal, the chairman of the APC in Osun, called the accusation untrue and baseless.
He said that the supposed intentions to suspend Aregbesola by certain persons do not make sense and are utterly nonsensical, and that only a deranged person could buy them whole.
Given that the aforementioned former minister has expressly met all requirements to be considered as having technically left the APC for a long time, Lawal said the question that should beg answers from right-thinking members of society is whether or not he is still legitimately qualified to be called a member of the party in Osun State and elsewhere in Nigeria.
“The fact that Aregbesola and his allies have been steadfastly working against the interests of the APC and its candidates in Osun State through The Osun Progressives, TOP, is no longer news.
“It has been established that Aregbesola and the TOP members, of which he served as a patron, converted into an opposition group within the Osun APC, hurling slurs and denouncing Oyetola’s administration at their weekly meetings at the Oranmiyan House, Aregbesola’s campaign office in Osogbo, on Thursdays.
In addition to not casting a ballot in the recent presidential election, which President Tinubu won, or in the elections for the National Assembly or governor, Aregbesola did not support any APC candidates during the state’s round of elections last year or this year, respectively.
To the disadvantage of all the APC candidates, Lawal also asserted that Aregbesola and his supporters have been socialising with Senator Ademola Adeleke, the governor running on the PDP platform.
