Aregbesola’s group: We will not leave APC despite alleged manipulation of guber primary

 

The Osun Progressives better known as ‘TOP’ – a faction in the All Progressives Congress loyal to the Minister of Interior, Rauf Aregbesola has disclosed that its members will remain in the party despite alleged manipulation of Saturday’s governorship primary.

Recall that Governor Adegboyega Oyetola was declared the winner of the primary election having polled 222,169 votes against the 12,921 of his closest challenger, Moshood Adeoti, a former Secretary to the State Government, who was supported by Aregbesola, while a former Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives, Mr Lasun Yusuf, scored 460 votes to place third.

Lani Baderinwa who is the state Secretary of the faction while addressing newsmen on Sunday said the group had predicted all what played out during the primary.

Baderinwa recalled that the faction had expressed concern over the non-availability of the party register that was used for the congress a few hours to the primary.

He said, “I can tell you with all authority that we don’t have to get to the point of leaving the party. For now, we are studying the situation.

“We will review the situation and come up with a decision, but we are not in a hurry. We had predicted what happened yesterday (Saturday).

“We knew that was going to happen. But the good thing is that we were able to stand up and be counted despite the fact that we saw a lot of underhand things done to undermine our coming to voting centres.

“With the voters’ register not available, we definitely knew that something was amiss. So many names were missing on the list. We are still going to review a lot of things and make a decision. Definitely, we are not going to leave the APC. We are the real progressives. We will remain in the party and right the wrongs.”

Reacting to the faction’s decision to stay in the party, the Special Adviser to the Governor on Political Affairs, Sunday Akere, welcomed it, saying Oyetola had already called on aggrieved members to bury their grievances and unite in the interest of the party.

Akere told our correspondent, “The governor, as the leader of the party and father of all, has extended olive branches to other aspirants and aggrieved members of the party. He told them to join hands with him to strengthen the party towards the election.

“A winner has emerged and we expect the losers to embrace him. Their supporters are also expected to join hands with the party to have a more united front. We welcome the idea of them remaining in the party.”

Oyetola had earlier called on the two aspirants that contested with him for the governorship ticket of the APC to join him to move the state forward.