The Osun State chapter of the All Progressives Congress (APC) has accused the state Governor Ademola Adeleke and his co-travellers of injecting a panicking measure to his administration for fear of unknown over the planned massive defection of some of the leaders and members of the Peoples Democratic Party PDP into the APC in thousands.
Information has it that Governor Adeleke and the chairman of the Osun State chapter of the PDP, Mr Sunday Bisi, hurriedly caused a meeting of some of the hitherto neglected state leaders of the PDP to be held at the state Government House, in order to show the continuous phoney loyalty of the said party leaders to the PDP subsequent to the planned defection of Omo Oba Dotun Babayemi and Dr Akin Ogunbiyi with the thousands of their supporters.
The media spaces of both print, electronics and social extractions have been awashed with the news of the planned defection of Babayemi, former PDP governorship aspirant and Ogunbiyi who was also a PDP and Accord Party’s governorship aspirant who slugged it out with Governor Adeleke during the 2022 general elections.
Investigation across the state has shown that the state PDP leadership has not been at ease since the resolve of Ogunbiyi and Babayemi to defect to the APC with their supporters across the nooks and crannies of the state.
In his reaction to the development, the Osun State chairman of the APC, Sooko Tajudeen Lawal, in a statement issued by the party’s Director of Media and Information, Chief Kola Olabisi, observed that “whatever political misfortune that is befalling Adeleke and his cohorts stemming from the massive harvesting of the PDP members and leaders by the APC is as a result of greed on the part of Adeleke and his Pathfinder Osun PDP faction.”
Lawal pointed out that no matter the meeting Governor Adeleke held with the hitherto neglected Osun State PDP leaders whether it’s under reconciliation or harmonisation of the leaders, it wouldn’t achieve any desired result as the governor has proved, through his misconduct after the Supreme Court declared him the winner of the governorship election, that he is neither a gentleman nor a promise keeper.
The state APC chairman stated that it was funny that it was after 17 months that Adeleke has been in government that he could deem it fit to know that some of the leaders of his party whose goodwill saw him to the governorship seat in the state are still existing.
He explained that the plight of Governor Adeleke could be likened to a hunter who rallied experienced leaders of his group to engage in a hunting expedition which subsequently becomes successful while the hunter chased away with cutlasses all those who contributed for his victory during the hunting expedition and makes himself the unilateral decider of who takes what.
Lawal stated that the euphoria of office and greed have robbed Adeleke of the ability to think before now that his office is a tenured one which would need renewal after four years.
He said, “How on earth would Governor Adeleke think that he could assuage some of his party leaders that he had been instrumental to their political mob attacks in the past because of his rabid ambition to forcefully become the governorship candidate of the PDP before the last general elections in the state?
“What is the propriety of Senator Adeleke, a PDP governor, to turn the State Government House into a party secretariat where the activities of the party are being run as well as in the Ede country home of the Adelekes?
“If my memory is not failing me, it is on record that since Adeleke became the state governor some 17 months ago, he has visited the state PDP Secretariat only once which made the party office to have been overgrown with weeds and desolate condition.
“It is late in the day for Adeleke to be contemplating holding of any reconciliation and harmonisation meeting(s) of the glaringly robbed and shortchanged disenchanted leaders of the state PDP as there is nothing to show that it will be done with utmost good faith.
“The fear of the defection of Babayemi and Ogunbiyi from the PDP to the APC is the beginning of wisdom for Governor Adeleke and his cohorts.
“We are not unaware as a party that Governor Adeleke himself has lost count of the number of the frivolous appointments of unmerited Special Advisers (without cabinet), Senior Special Assistants and Special Assistants under his administration in order to hang on to power.
“Let’s make it abundantly clear to Governor Adeleke that even if he appoints all the people of Osun State his political functionaries, such executive recklessness would not, in any way, confer any special advantage on him as the PDP government would be sent packing in the state through democratic means by the way of the forthcoming 2026 elections in the state,” Lawal told Adeleke.