Says Adeleke, PDP senators’ support no big deal
The All Progessives Congress in Osun State has asked Governor Ademola Adeleke, the ruling People’s Democratic Party, and his supporters to desist from remarking as if the political fortune of his predecessor and APC leader in the state, Alhaji Gboyega Oyetola, depends on their whims and caprices.
The party was reacting to the posture by Adeleke and PDP senators from the state who said they endorsed and supported the nomination of Oyetola as a Minister from the State.
The party said Oyetola’s track records as a prudent manager of resources earned him an edge to occupy any position in the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
Oyetola, the immediate past Governor of Osun State, was screened for ministerial appointment in the Senate last Friday where Senator Lere Oyewumi, the Deputy Senate minority leader and Senator Francis Fadahunsi, spoke glowingly about Oyetola, the Osun State ministerial nominee.
Praising Oyetola, Oyewumi disclosed that Governor Adeleke had directed all the three PDP senators representing the state in the Senate to support Oyetola’s ministerial nomination.
APC said that since Oyetola’s successful screening and subsequent confirmation, the state PDP town criers have been making the support of the three PDP senators an issue as if Oyetola wouldn’t have scaled the screening exercise successfully without the support of the three PDP senators.
In his remark on the development, Osun State APC chairman, Sooko Tajudeen Lawal, in a statement issued by the party’s Director of Media and Information, Chief Kola Olabisi, in Osogbo, the state capital on Tuesday stated that the support of the three PDP senators given to Oyetola during the screening exercise was good but not spectacular.
Lawal expressly told Governor Adeleke, the PDP, the three senators and all the members and supporters of the ruling party in Osun State that their opposition to the nomination of Oyetola as a minister would not have prevented the former Osun State governor from scaling through the screening exercise.
He explained that the state PDP, the governor and his co-travellers were only making a mountain out of a mole hill by making a superlative issue out of the so-called Osun State senatorial support which intention could not have been genuine.
“There wasn’t anything spectacular about the support given to Alhaji Gboyega Oyetola by the three PDP senators during the screening of the former Osun State governor for ministerial nomination in the Senate, as there is no rule in the Senate that makes such a support mandatory as a prerequisite to be screened.
“The opposition of the three PDP Osun senators and Governor Adeleke would not have blocked the chances of Oyetola from becoming a minister.
“The occasion was only tapped as an opportunity for the Osun State PDP senators to join the winning team and as an opportunity for them not to wash their dirty linen in the public.
“The support given to the immediate-past Governor Oyetola would not eraze from the subconscious of the right-thinking members of the Osun State society how the three PDP senators and all other party’s candidates stepped on the blood of the innocent members and supporters of the APC in Osun State to make their way to the fraudulent electoral victory that they are now parading.
“The Adeleke and PDP senators’ support for Oyetola during the ministerial screening was a ploy to assuage our members and supporters in Osun State.
“Apart from the fact that Governor Adeleke would need the services of Oyetola as a minister, it should resonate in the memory of the Osun PDP town criers and their principal that while a minister represents the President in all the states making up of the country, a governor only superintends his state.
“What we are saying in essence is that there was no big deal or anything special or spectacular in the three Osun State PDP Senators’ support of former Governor Oyetola during his ministerial screening”, Lawal submitted.
