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No rift between Aregbesola and Oyetola –Osun APC Chieftain, Sunday Akere

Sunday Akere is a Chieftain of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Osun and former Commissioner for Information in the state. In this interview with LATEEF DADA, he speaks on insecurity in Osun and Nigeria, among other sundry issues. Excerpts

There is an insinuation that the APC has split into two in Osun with one camp belonging to Governor Gboyega Oyetola and the other camp with former Governor Rauf Aregbesola, how will you react to this?

Governor Adegboyega Oyetola is the leader of the party, and it behoves on all of us that we must rally round him, support him to ensure that he succeed. So, there is a single party in Osun APC and it is under the chairmanship of Prince Gboyega Famodun, while the leader of the party in Osun is Alhaji Isiaka Oyetola. There is no party A and part B in APC. There might be some internal wrangling but you can be sure that we are managing it.

But do you agree that there is a misunderstanding between Governor Oyetola and Aregbesola

One thing is clear, both Aregbesola and Oyetola belong to the same political family. They are both products of Asiwaju Bola Tinubu tutelage. It is also clear that in our party, APC, we respect leadership. We honor those that are our leaders. The major problem in politics today has to do with the followers. Sometimes, those of us that are following them cause problems between them because where no rift exists they will go out and start spreading rumour that there is a rift. Yes, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola handed over to Governor Oyetola. They are both in the same party, APC, and we are advancing and running the same government programmes. May be because some people felt that what they expected that they could have got, they didn’t get it, they might be the ones spreading the rumour of frosty relationship. Both of them are still friends. They respect each other. Alhaji Oyetola served as Chief of Staff under Aregbesola for eight years and I know that today, even if there are issues, they still call themselves and talk.

It is only their followers that will go out and say A and B are fighting. I know that both Ogbeni Aregbesola and Alhaji Oyetola belong to the same political family and they are the best of friends. In no distant time, all the rumours will go down and things will be settled fully.

There are alleged security breaches in Osun occasioned by the rift between Aregbesola and Oyetola, how will you react to this?

It is not only in Osun that we have security breaches; the prayer all of us should be praying is that God should intervene in the security situation in Nigeria. If you watch the television today, you will see the police taking 20 culprits to court. They fight in Ikorodu, they fight in Badagry, they fight everywhere. Are we now going to say it is differences between Aregbesola and Oyetola that is making them to fight everywhere? To -day, there is a terrible decadence, people are now worshipping money. The devil, they say, finding work for the idle man. The issues that causes security related challenges are not even related to the two leaders. Ogbeni knows that he laid the foundation of the house that Oyetola is presiding over now. He knows that he laid the foundation of the government and he will never do anything to destroy the structure. From all indications, Oyetola is a gentle man to the core. He is a son of an Imam. Oyetola will never encourage anybody to go and start fighting and so the rubbish they are saying does not exist. The security breaches that we are witnessing are not peculiar to Osun State, they are everywhere. We should just pray that God should assist us that our own situation will not degenerate into what we have in other states like in the Northeast a n d the Northwest. Whatever crisis that might be happening now has nothing to do with politics. If they say they fight somewhere today, the police will tell you they are factional cult boys. They are not politicians and they have nothing to do with any political leader.

There is an allegation that some leaders of the APC collected money for inclusion of some names the list of caretaker committees in the local governments and that this is delaying the release of the list. Could you tell us what is really happening?

They should even wait until the list is out before they know if the money they spent worked or not. In politics, people spread a lot of rumours. What we want to do is to ensure that in compiling the list of the members of the caretaker committees, we get it right. We don’t want a situation where we will release the list and there will be issues. The governor is working round the clock to ensure that he carries every leader along, irrespective of the local government, he comes from and everybody matters. That is what is delaying the caretaker committees list and I know that in the next few days, the list will be out. May be when it is out, those that are spreading rumour that they collected money will know whether their money worked or not.

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