The All Progressives Congress (APC), Oyo state Chapter has reacted to the recent petition written by the Minister of Communications, Mr. Adebayo Shittu to President Muhammadu Buhari, the National Chairman of the party, Chief John Oyegun and a national leader of the party, Bola Tinubu.
Recall that Shittu in the referenced petition had attributed his frosty relationship with the Governor of Oyo State to his refusal to allow the unjust removal of the chapter chairman of Ido Local Government, Pastor Akintokun as well as his acceptance of a chieftaincy title from the Olubadan of Ibadan land.
Reacting to the petition, the party in a statement issued by the Director of Media and Strategy Dr. Abdul-Azeez Olatunde declared the Minister an enemy of the state for writing a petition to the president and others. He also described the allegations made by the Minister as 'baseless and fallacious'.
The petition read in part;
“Contrary to the reckless insinuations made by the minister, the APC is doing extremely well in the state. Rather than lose any member to the opposition, the state APC under the leadership of Governor Ajimobi has been moving from strength to strength. Barely one month ago, the rank and file of the party membership, which has continued to experience unprecedented growth and development, witnessed a bumper harvest when notable political stakeholders from major opposition parties in the state defected to the APC in an open rally and submitted themselves to the leadership of the governor.
It is quite saddening, highly disheartening and a monumental disservice to our party that a serving minister of Oyo State origin will close his eyes to the reality of the rising political profile of not only our party but also of our leader. The fact is that his petition is rooted in falsehood and premised on cheap blackmail.
It must be stated that while Governor Ajimobi and other leaders of our party have been working assiduously to develop our great party, Shittu in his characteristic manner has been moving from one local government to another sowing the seeds of discord all in the name of his desperate and inordinate ambition to govern the state.
He was never part of the developmental process of our party. Having lost the governorship primary in 2015 , Shittu abandoned every activity geared towards the victory of the party including the presidential campaign. He further took the party to court on the eve of the 2015 governorship election and was working for the opposition Accord Party where his former boss and benefactor contested the governorship election. Today, he is reaping from where he did not sow.”
