The breakaway faction of the Oyo State chapter of the All Progressives Congress, APC, The Unity Forum, has described local government chairmen and their ‘hired crowd’ who held a supposed rally in support of Governor Abiola Ajimobi in Saki against the Forum in Oke Ogun as “members of the Senator Abiola Ajimobi Campaign Organisation (SENACO) and impostors whose days of reign in state are numbered.
Insight Oyo gathered that council chairmen, council chairmen and top political finctionaries from the 18 local government areas and local council development areas and 180 wards of Okeogun staged a solidarity rally today.
Insight Oyo had exclusively reported how the party has been divided along the two factions.
In a statement signed by Alhaji Adebisi Omofoye, the Unity Forum said “the parade of shame that took place in Saki today is a confirmation that public officials in the government of Ajimobi have lost touch with the people they are supposed to represent in government. If we may ask, which road did the Ajimobi bootlickers ply to get to Saki?. The same pot hole infested road that has turned the two and half hour journey from Ibadan to Saki to six hours? Did they spare time to look at the towns as they passed by? Did they see the hungry and angry faces of our people who voted for Ajimobi in 2015 with great hopes but who have been humbled by unpaid salaries, unpaid gratuity and pensions and tonnes and tonnes of lies by a government that has lost all sense of shame?Did they speak with our traditional rulers whose 5 percent allocation in local council financial allocations have been arrested, detained and spent as the state government wishes? Do these commissioners and council chairmen speak with the people they govern at all?. If they do and they have shame, they would not have paid N1,000 per head to hire a crowd to defend the indefensible.”
The open meeting of Unity Forum in Saki in Tuesday, Insight Oyo gathered, attracted leaders of all strata of the APC, ranging from leaders who had been part of the progressive movement and parties since the Action Group days through the days of UPN, SDP, AD, and AC and ACN.
Sources said those who attended the Unity Forum meeting Saki included leaders of women and youth groups of the party in Oke Ogun. They included representatives of all generations and they came en mass from the 10 local governments area of Oke Ogun. They included former caretaker chairmen and 80 percent of the APC ward and local government council areas executives who delivered nine of the 10 councils in Oke Ogun to the APC in 2015.
In 2015, it was the bloc votes of Oke Ogun that gave victory to Ajimobi against other candidates.
The statement reads: “Today, the chicken has come home to roost. Ajimobi has broken the pot that gave him food in 2015. 2019 is by the corner and he will know the worth of the chalatans he has appointed to government offices from Oke Ogun just like the bye-election in Ibarapa East showed him the worth of his new found allies in Ibarapa zone.
“On parade in the show of shame in Saki were council chairmen and councillors purportedly elected in the last local government election. In most of the local government areas, less than one thousand people turned out for rhe exercise. This forced the government and its hirelings to doctor election results, allotting figures according to their fancy.
“The falseholod in the charade lasted only two weeks as the bye-election into the House of Assembly in Ibarapa East exposed the fraud in the local government election statewide.
“The party that purpotedly won the local government election by a landslide was roundly defeated in the election conducted by INEC. Those who call themselves chairmen in the local government areas of Oke Ogun today just like in other parts of Oyo State do not represent the people. None of them qualifies to attend meetings of community leaders in their respective councils in Oke Ogun.
“They are dregs of the society that Ajimobi hand-picked in his desperate bid to create a new leadership for the people of Oke Ogun as he is doing in other parts of the state. The Oke Ogun people are known for their integrity and can never accept such dregs of society as their leaders.
“The show of shame by the so-called chairmen is a descecration of the respected offices they occupy temporarily. In another few months, they will all be back in the unemploymeent pool where they came from.
“We call on our teeming supporters to remain calm, law abiding and focused. The quest to end corruption, deceit and irresponsibility in the government of Oyo State has started and it will only end in praise, the statement added.
