The APC in Osun State has disputed Governor Ademola Adeleah’s claim that he never attempted to defect to the party from the PDP.
The APC revealed that its national leadership informed Adeleke that he must follow the regular nomination process and would not be granted an automatic ticket to contest the governorship election under the party.
A statement released on Saturday, Kola Olabisi, the Director of Media and Information for the APC in Osun, asserted that Adeleke was dishonest when he told PDP stakeholders he had no plans to leave the party now or in the foreseeable future.
At the stakeholder meeting, Adeleke dismissed the rumours of his imminent defection to the APC as “fake news spread by those threatened by our exceptional leadership performance in the state.”
However, the APC expressed surprise that Adeleke failed to be honest with the state PDP stakeholders including former Governor Olagunsoye Oyinlola, Dr Olu Alabi, Professor Wale Oladipo, Akanni Olohunwa, Mr Sunday Bisi, Adewale Egbedun, Lasun Yusuf, among others by not admitting that his desperate efforts to defect to the opposition APC had been unsuccessful.
Many people were unaware that certain governors from the Southwest geo-political zone, along with some prominent millionaire industrialists, were secretly working under the cover of night to orchestrate Governor Adeleke’s defection attempt.
His pleading visit to Chief Bisi Akande at his Ibadan residence in Oyo State remains vivid in the minds of well-informed and discerning members of the public.
“We wonder why Governor Adeleke failed to reveal to the PDP stakeholders that the condition given to him by the leadership of the ruling party at the national level was that he would have to queue up and that he could not be given an automatic ticket for the governorship election under the APC.
“If Governor Adeleke is cocksure that he is popular, why touting the option of defecting into the APC to fly the governorship flag of the party? Could it be the desolate state of his so-called ruling party that was responsible for his initial plan to defect into the APC?
“It is those viewing the PDP-produced governor from outside the state that are ascribing the attribute of popularity to him when in actual fact, his party witnesses defection of its members into the leading opposition party almost on a daily basis.
“It is a misnomer for Governor Adeleke to have an exaggerated notion of his political popularity, influence and acceptability when his shortcomings are constantly showing a red sign having served the state within the limit of his unenviable capacity for three years running which has proved to be a monumental disaster to the overall development of the state.
“We congratulate the forward-looking members and supporters of our party that God Almighty was magnanimous enough to have divinely blocked the aspired defection of Governor Adeleke into our party which could have caused untold friction, lack of cohesion, disunity and schisms of an unimaginable dimension.
As a party, we are warning Governor Adeleke to withdraw the false claims made to the unsuspecting stakeholders of the Osun State PDP, or he risks having detailed information about his numerous failed attempts to join our party exposed to the public,” the APC stated.
