Akeredolu's spat with Tinubu continues as APC chieftain accused governor of vendetta against opponents

GOVERNOR Rotimi Akeredolu's ongoing spat with the All Progressives Congress (APC) leadership continues to escalate with a former Osun State commissioner describing him as the spanner in the cog of wheel of the party in Ondo State.

Earlier this month, Governor Akeredolu received a formal query from the APC national leadership over his role in the last general elections that saw the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) win in Ondo State. In February's presidential elections, the PDP presidential candidate Alhaji Atiku Abubakar defeated President Buhari of the APC by 275,901 votes to 241,769.

In the National Assembly elections, too, the PDP came out tops, winning two of the three senatorial seats in the state, while in the House of Representatives elections, the APC only won four of the nine seats. Governor Akeredolu has been accused of working against his own APC in the state by supporting some candidates of rival parties.

Consequently, the APC's national working committee (NWC) reportedly suspended the governor after receiving a report from a committee set up to investigate what happened during the elections. However, the governor has since denied being suspended or issued with any query by the APC leadership.

Adding his voice to the matter, Bola Ilori, a former commissioner for regional integration in Osun State under the Rauf Aregbesola administration, claimed that Governor Akeredolu's penchant for vendetta culminated into the unhealthy disunity and disharmony within the Ondo State chapter of the APC. He added that the governor’s travails were not caused by the APC national leader Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu.

Mr Ilori, an indigene of Ondo State, described the attitude of Governor Akeredolu as too pedestrian, stressing that after two years of emerging as governor, he was still unsettled over the intra-party primary that preceded his tenure. He maintained that the process that led to the emergence of Governor Akeredolu as the party’s standard-bearer in 2016 was faulty, as the APC appeal panel had annulled the primaries that produced the governor due to what he described as glaring fraud.

“Some of us could not stand such shenanigans led by Chief John Odigie-Oyegun. We followed the party’s internal mechanism but it was unilaterally terminated by the then national chairman.

“Subsequently, we left the party in the expression of our democratic rights on the platform of another party in agitation against the clear injustice. It was well reported that Akeredolu organised an attack on me at the venue of an official government assignment in Akure and we were to go to court but some elders of the party led by Chief Bisi Akande, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, Chief Pius Akinyelure and others intervened.

“They appealed to all aggrieved against the gubernatorial election processes to drop all further agitation and return to the party and embrace unity. The governor thereafter organised a unity rally and I attended."

He added that they all then returned to the party and worked for the victory of Governor Akeredolu but he continued his vendetta into the last general elections. According to Mr Ilori, Governor Akeredolu’s anti-party activities would have been justifiable as a payback were it to be that it directed against either him of Olusola Oke, who opposed him but neither of them were on the ballot paper at the last election.

Saying that it was President Muhammadu Buhari and the APC's National Assembly candidates that stood, the governor's actions were thus deliberate sabotage against the fortunes of the party. He added that neither Asiwaju Tinubu, Governor Aregbesola nor Senator Ajayi Boroffice gave him a penny to campaign against Governor Akeredolu.