Aregbesola's even visitation to Ekiti, hint to Tinubu's rivals

Ekiti State celebrated its 20th Anniversary on Saturday, 1st October, 2016 and it was graced by a ruling party Governor of Osun state, Ogbeni Abdul-Rauf Aregbesola who delivered a lecture on Nigeria's economic challenges titled "The imperative of unity". At the occasion, the two governors had divergent perspectives over the sale of national assets as the purported proposed action was described by the host Governor, Ayodele Fayose, as auctioning Nigeria at a giveaway price while the visiting governor reiterated the necessity to sell off our idle assets and spare the active ones in order to lift up the country from the mud of economic recession.

This august visitation by the governor of the State of Osun to Ekiti state became even having recalled the visit of Governor Fayose to Osun in January this year where he revealed that embracing Ogbeni was not political but for his unshaken belief in the oneness of the Yoruba nation.

Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola once served a boss as Commissioner for Works in Lagos State and with the aid of this boss he mounted the throne as a Governor under the auspices of the present ruling party at the center. The said boss is no other personality than Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, a national leader of the All Progressives Congress (APC).

Jagaban, as Tinubu is famously known, currently has dispute with the party's national chairman for overruling the recommendations of the 3-man Appeal committee set up to probe the primary election of the party's flag bearers in Ondo state gubernatorial race, which was upheld by the National Working Committee (NWC), to cancel the previous primary election organized by the party in the state. This face-off had gotten escalated that Asiwaju requested for the resignation of the party's national chairman, John Oyegun. The supporters of the party chairman are already in war of words with Asiwaju, condemning his call for Oyegun's resignation.

However, it is no more news that Ayodele Fayose of Ekiti State (The oshokomole 1) had been attacking both President Buhari and the ruling party since the inception of the ruling government while the state chapter of the ruling party and the governor are like sworn enemies. They are part of the reasons why the Ekiti chapter of APC sparked, after the visitation of Aregbesola, to express strong disapproval over his attendance at the State's 20th Anniversary and vowing to oppose any future alignment of the Ekiti Governor with the ruling party.

We might be committing fallacy if we regard the visitation as necessary by pitching an excuse that the state is celebrating its 20 years of existence and because it's a South-western state. Assuming the two governors were not in good terms Ogbeni would have shelved dining with Oshokomole 1 of Ekiti.

The absence of other APC South-west governors or their representatives and the timing of the visitation could make us deduce that Asiwaju Bola Tinubu is sending a message through his men to his rivals in the party as a clear warning for them to desist from any intent to rubbish his personality or cripple his powers in the party or face possible re-alignment in future, as Osun governor hint his counterpart in Ekiti on probable synchronization of forces in the nearest future.

Tinubu's political influence in the South-west region cannot be over looked as he had the record of supporting a Southern President to emerge in 2011 and as well joined forces to overthrow the same government with the 2015 general elections which produced a Northerner. No doubt, realigning his forces with another "party", if this crisis is not well managed, might cause the downfall of the ruling party before and after 2019, the next general election.

Source:
https://ibadanelite./2016/10/05/aregbesolas-even-visitation-to-ekiti-hint-to-tinubus-rivals/