The national leadership of the All Progressives Congress, APC, has cleared the air over who is leader of the party in Oyo State, declaring that the caretaker chairman of the party, Akin Oke is the leader of the party in the state, OYOINSIGHT.COM has learnt.
The declaration, this newspaper learnt, was made in Abuja yesterday during a meeting with some stakeholders in the party from the state who had met him to discuss the state congress of the party initially planned for tomorrow Saturday but eventually postponed for another two weeks.
Shortly after OYOINSIGHT.COM broke the story of the meeting, the party had postponed the congress.
The stakeholders including the youth and sports minister, Sunday Dare, Adebayo Shittu,Senator Ayoade Adeseun, Adebayo Adelabu, Sharafadeen Alli and others had met the party leadership over disputes on the delegates list.
The APC had been engulfed in crisis over falsification of congress’ documents.
Last week when other states went into congress, the national leadership of the party postponed the exercise in Oyo State over allegations that the process had been compromised. A new congress date was fixed for Wednesday but that was again postponed to Saturday which was again postponed indefinitely.
Stakeholders at the meeting disclosed that the leadership after listening to submission by the stakeholders declared that Oke should find a way of uniting the parties ahead of the congress.
“The national leadership was categorical in its declaration that in any state where the party does not have a sitting governor, the chairman of the party in the state is the leader of the party and he is expected to be the rallying point of all affairs of the party.”
In the specific instance of Oyo State, the leadership said the party had known Oke for a long time as a father in the progressives party and they have absolute confidence in him to lead the party in Oyo State.
At the end of the meeting in Abuja, the leadership postponed the congress by two weeks with admonition to the critical stakeholders in the party in Oyo State to resolve their differences and position the party for greater challenges.
The other critical stakeholders who attended the meeting included former speaker Gunju Ojo, Abass Alesinloye, Gbenga Olayemi, Wale Murphy and others.
