… Before they fell apart …
By Banji Ayoola
Still boiling with rage barely 12 hours after a bloody clash, supporters of Osun State Governor, Gboyega Oyetola and those of the Interior Minister, Rauf Aregbesola, on Sunday resorted to a verbal warfare over the violence which occurred at the secretariat of the Osun State All Progressives Congress, APC, in Osogbo, the state capital.
They traded accusations over the invasion of the secretariat by suspected thugs.
Suspected thugs on Saturday had invaded the APC Secretariat and disrupted the sitting of the Appeal Committee while it was reviewing petitions from the party’s last Ward Congress.
The clash was followed few hours later by gunshots which caused pandemonium and forced the appeal committee members to hurriedly close shop and vacate the tension soaked secretariat, venue of their sitting.
Oyetola and Aregbesola are the principals of the two main antagonistic factions into which the APC has broken in the state. While the governor leads his supporters in the Ileri Oluwa group who are rooting for his return to complete his statutory two terms of eight years, the minister leads The Osun Progressives, TOP faction which thinks otherwise and works towards another permutation.
Remarkably, Aregbesola handed over to Oyetola as governor after completing two terms and was immediately after his tenure, appointed a minister by President Muhammadu Buhari. The two had been intimate political associates until they fell apart over differences. In fact Oyetola played a prominent role in the Aregbesola administration.
APC caretaker chairman in the state, Gboyega Famoodun, in a statement signed by his media consultant, Kola Olabisi, accused Lowo Adebiyi, the chairman, “The Osun Progressives,’’ a faction of the party backed by Aregbesola, of leading the hoodlums in the attack.
Famoodun said, “the invasion of the party’s office which was led by a self-styled chairman of TOP and the former chairman of the party, Elder Lowo Adebiyi; the current state Secretary of the party, Alhaji Rasaq Salinsile and a former Special Adviser under the administration of ex-Governor Aregbesola, Gbenga Akano, with some of his cabinet members, was crude, unacceptable, wicked, unwarranted, self-serving, undemocratic and brutish.
“During the invasion of the state party secretariat, the political thugs who accompanied the TOP chieftains into the place grew wild and started to forcefully remove and beat any sighted member of the APC who was putting on Governor Oyetola’s inscribed fez cap.
“During the melee, an APC member, Mr Nurudeen Ajetunmobi a.k.a Abalawa from Ward Six in Osogbo Local Government Council Area, who was putting on an Oyetola-inscribed fez cap was assaulted and macheted on the head to the extent that his blood littered the ground floor of the secretariat.”
However, at a news conference in Osogbo, the Caretaker Secretary of the party, Razaq Salinsile, said, “Hoodlums with Oyetola 4+4 face caps were drafted to the secretariat to dislodge the party members who had been calmly going before the Appeal Committee to present their cases.
“The resolute members resisted the invasion and walked the thugs out. The thugs yielded to an awesome number and left in shame. The sitting was going on smoothly and everybody thought reason had prevailed and the worst was over.
“Not quite long after, the thugs who had returned in multiple numbers, forced their way into the premises of the party Secretariat and started massive attacks on the people. The thugs with orange colour fez cap with inscriptions of ‘Oyetola 4+4’, were so entrenched in impunity. Some of them had their faces covered with hoods.”
