APC Chieftain Tasks Ajimobi, Others on Party Unity in Oyo

The Chairman, National Lottery Regulatory Commission, Alhaji Fatai Ibikunle, on Wednesday called on leaders of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Oyo State to eschew forthwith any action or utterance capable of fuelling crisis in the party in the interest of all whose political lives are tied to APC.

Ibikunle, one of the founders of APC in the state, said the growing promotion of hate, lies, character assassination and other destructive tendencies by those who had benefited massively through the party, was wrong, wicked and a deliberate attempt to deprive the young ones in the progressive fold the opportunities to realise their political goals.

While speaking with journalists in Ibadan, the state capital, yesterday, he said  he had never at any time left the APC contrary to insinuations in a paid advertisement sponsored by some prominent politicians that served in the last administration.

Also, the Ibarapa-born politician declared pointedly that he had never even for just one day, “joined or worked for any other party than the political party of the late Alhaji Lam Adesina and Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu since the beginning of the present democracy, unlike many of those peddling callous falsehood,” whom he said were  turncoats,  notorious for jumping from one party to the other without any consideration for composition or ideological leanings of such parties.

Ibikunle also described as “most wicked and evil” allegation that he collected money from Senator Soji Akanbi to step down for him in the last election, stating that he had never and would never engage in such act, as he challenged anyone with any evidence of such to bring it out.

According to him, “In all my political life, I have maintained a very decent and clean posture, and that is why all the leaders I had worked with hold me in very high esteem. Without being immodest, I can say categorically that the immediate-past governor of the state benefitted immensely from my hard earned reputation and integrity in securing our party’s tickets and winning his two gubernatorial elections.

“As a loyal, committed and totally dedicated member of the APC, I used all in me to work for the party in my ward and the local government area in all the elections, and my results, which are far better than the results of our party in the polling units of those accusing me falsely, are public information which anybody can verify. I did all this, in spite of the neglect, dispossession and persecution my followers and I suffered in the hands of the then governor. Anyway, unlike them, I am not known for greed, callousness and self-centeredness.”

Having lost in the last general election, the former assistant  to late Lam Adesina advised that “what all of us, the leaders of the party, should be concentrating on is how to achieve genuine reconciliation and serious pacification of the aggrieved ones. What I expected from the immediate-past governor and our leader is some level of soberness and expression of genuine apologies to those he had either by commission or omission held down in the last eight years.”

“I am a progressive to the core and my primary interest is to see that our great party regains all that we lost in the last general election. My appeal to all the leaders is to always be mindful of the interests and the future of the young ones following us. We should not because we have acquired so much for ourselves and families; attained the unprecedented levels in politics, and now want to destroy the party. This is just like someone trying to destroy a stream after fetching enough water for himself and his family.”