The All Progressives Congress, APC in Osun State has been accused of scheming to suspend Rauf Aregbesola, the immediate past Minister of Interior, from the party in the state.
The allegations were made in a statement issued by Abosede Oluwaseun, the Osun APC former factional youth leader, on Thursday.
Oluwaseun also warned that any attempt to suspend Aregbesola will backfire.
He alleged that “The plot is being orchestrated by ousted former governor Gboyega Oyetola and five of his loyalists, among who are a Senator and former Speaker of Osun State House of Assembly who lost their re-election.
“Others involved in the grand plot are a young former commissioner for Works and Transport and former commissioner for local government and chieftaincy affairs who are said to be the initiators of the suspension idea, he alleged.
“We have it on high authority that the Ilesa Ward 8 executives of the APC, which is Aregbesola’s ward, were manipulated yesterday (Wednesday) to sign a blank sheet of paper on the false pretence that the APC state leadership wanted to get their commitment to the progress of the party.
“We are also reliably informed that a huge amount of money was given to the ward executives a few hours ago by an emissary sent by Oyetola and other conspirators.
“We note that having failed in the various attempts to blackmail Aregbesola, Oyetola and others resorted to unjustly suspending Aregbesola to stall the reconciliation between him and President Bola Ahmed Tinubu.”
However, the Osun APC has debunked the allegations and dismissed the viral report that it is planning to suspend Rauf Aregbesola over anti-party activities.
The Chairman of the APC in Osun, Tajudeen Lawal, in a statement in Osogbo on Friday, described the claim as false and spurious.
He said the alleged plans by some people to suspend Aregbesola do not add up and is grossly illogical, which could only be taken hook, line and sinker by a demented person.
Lawal said the question that should be begging answers by right-thinking members of society is if the said former minister is still genuinely qualified to be called a member of the APC in Osun State and elsewhere in Nigeria, having expressly fulfilled all the conditions to tag him as having technically left the party for many years.
“It is no longer news that Aregbesola and his co-travellers through The Osun Progressives, TOP have been consistently working against the interest of the APC and its candidates in Osun State.
“It is on record that Aregbesola and the members of his TOP of which he was a patron turned themselves into an opposition within the Osun APC where they were hurling insults and criticising Oyetola’s government at their every Thursday meetings at the Oranmiyan House which is the campaign office of Aregbesola in Osogbo.
“Apart from the fact that Aregbesola never voted during the last presidential election which was won by President Tinubu, National Assembly and governorship elections, he never voted or campaigned for any APC candidates during the series of the elections that were held in the state last year and this year respectively.”
Lawal also claimed that Aregbesola and his loyalists have been hobnobbing with Senator Ademola Adeleke, the governor under the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP platform, to the detriment of all the APC candidates.
