Osun 2018: PDP caretaker committee chairman anticipated electoral victory, an act of ignorance

Oluwole Ige, Osogbo

AS the preparations for 2018 governorship election in Osun gathers momentum, the ruling All Progressive Congress (APC), on Saturday has described the boast by the newly appointed chairman of the caretaker committee  of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Mr Sarafa Tunji Ishola that his party would sack the APC as “an act of ignorance”.

Isola was recently appointed by the national chairman of the PDP, Senator Ahmed Makarfi to stir the ship of the party in Osun State, pending when a fresh congress would be conducted to elect new party executive.

He reportedly said on Tuesday in Osogbo that with the ongoing reposition of the party, stronger pedestal had been set to defeat the APC in the next year gubernatorial poll.

However, the APC in a statement issued by the party’s director of publicity, research and strategy in Osogbo, Barrister Kunle Oyatomi declared that if wishes were horses, beggars will ride”, adding that what Mr Sarafa Tunji Ishola, the mediator in Osun PDP imbroglio said about the PDP planning to sack APC from office in 2018 was laughable”.

The statement read in parts, we wouldn’t blame him much because he is ignorant of Osun politics. Secondly, the exercise of bringing the divided PDP together, which he claimed to have succeeded in, doesn’t add up. The division within the PDP in Osun is skin-deep and multifaceted, and it’s entirely driven by the reckless ambition of one man against the run of affairs to become governor at all cost”.

‘Besides, the economic problem in the state of Osun is nationwide and not peculiar to Osun. So, if the PDP thinks it can capitalise on the economic downturn, it’s just fooling itself, because essentially that party (PDP) created the problem with its kleptocratic rule that wrecked the Nigerian economy between 1999 and 2015, and put the country in recession”.

“They stole the country blind and the monumental stealing made it impossible for us to withstand the fall in oil prices. The Aregbesola-led APC government did not steal Osun’s money, neither was it reckless. All over the state, there is evidence of what Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola and the APC government did with Osun’s money that has never been seen or done in the state, since it was created”.