AREGBESOLA, ADEOTI FACE EXPULSION FROM APC AS PARTY SETS TO RAISE DISCIPLINARY COMMITTEE
‘There will be more defeats for APC’, Aregbe vows
‘Adeoti is no longer a member of the APC as he automatically stands expelled already – Party Chieftain
Members of APC in Alimosho accuse Enilolobo of engaging in pervasive conduct in the LGA; It's not true - Kehinde Joseph
THERE are indications that the Osun State Chapter of the All Progressives Congress (APC) was not ready to overlook the allegations of anti-party conduct of the members of Osun Progressives Group and their lead, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola, which was believed to have plaid a role in the party’s loss of the July 16 governorship election.
Sources said the party leadership was already done with the collation of reports “ward by ward”, which was the necessary step to raise a fact “Finding Committee” that would identify and harmonize the specific offences of those concerned. Aregbesola, a serving Minister of Interior in the ruling APC and Adeoti, head of the Osun Progressives Group, would be facing expulsion from the party if they are eventually found culpable.
This development yet came amidst Aregbesola’s vow that there would be more defeats for the party ahead of the 2023 general elections if it did not heed the demand for restructuring of the party by his group.
Another party chieftain also observed that the leadership of the Osun Progressives lacks any right to demand any restructuring of the party’s Executive Committee because they were no long members of the party as the APC Constitution specifies on the position of any member “that dare takes the Party to court”.
It may be recalled that the Osun APC had on August 4, announced its decision to subject the members of Osun Progressives to facing the appropriate disciplinary committee after it had reviewed election in wider scale.
Speaking at the press conference to announce that the party had discovered sufficient grounds to challenge the poll in court, the State Party Chairman, Prince Gboyega Famodu, said there was room for punishment to any erring party members. He said the party was only awaiting the reports of Ward chairmen on the election day before takin the next step.
He said: ”Our party’s Constitution allows punishment for erring members. As it is, there is room for discipline in the party constitution, but it must be legally followed. We have set up machinery to investigate the activities of those individuals in their wards. We will get report from the ward chairmen as to how they have been behaving in their wards in the past few years. We have told the ward chairmen to write reports on all of them. The party constitution will be used to deal with them.”
Recent information gathered by Civics Weekly revealed that the ward chairmen had already submitted their reports as mandated to so do earnestly. The source, who sought anonymity because he was “not the spokesman” for the party, said “matters of the Fact Finding Committee had been settled”, adding that the party would only which that they also submit their report in no time.
Article 9(3) which defines the “Disciplinary Procedure” states that:
i. “A complaint by any member of the party against a public office holder, elected or appointed, or another member or against a party organ or officer of the party shall be submitted to the Executive Committee of the party at all levels concerned, which shall, not later than seven (7) days of the receipt of the complaint. Appoints a Fact-finding Committee or Disciplinary Committee to examine the matter”.
Subsections iii & iv of this Article 9(3) which came by way of proposed amendment that ought to have been ratified at the last June 7th National Congress tries to separate the Fact-finding Committee from the Disciplinary Committee when it says:
iii. “The Executive Committee concerned, upon receipt of the Fact-Finding Committee report, shall transfer the case to the Disciplinary Committee within fourteen days to hear and determine the allegation”.
iv. “The Executive Committee of the party at the level where a complaint or allegation is made shall within twenty-one (21) days, upon receipt of the report of the Disciplinary Committee, either reject or approve”.
Article 9(5)(i) describes “Cessation of Party Membership” says “Membership of the Party shall be terminated by death, resignation, expulsion and procurement of membership of other political party”.
Article 21(2) then goes further to list offences against the party to include among others:
i. A breach of the Party Constitution
ii Anti-party activities or any conduct, which is likely to embarrass or have adverse effect on the party or bring the party into hatred, contempt, ridicule or disrepute.
vi. Factionalisation or creating parallel party organs at any level.
The subsection ii above was even expanded in a proposed amendment too to state as subsection (viii) reads that “Engaging in dishonest practices, thuggery, continuously being absent from meetings to which he/she is invited without reasonable cause, carrying out anti-party or other activities which tends to disrupt the peaceful, lawful and efficient organization of the party or which are inconsistent with the aims and objectives of the party”.
Article 21(5) defines applicable “Punishment for Erring Members” to include:
i(a-i) reprimand, censure, deferment from holding party office, removal from party office, suspension from the party, expulsion from the party, deferment from contesting office on the party’s platform; and “in appropriate circumstance, the party shall cause the prosecution of the member or erstwhile member of the party concerned”.
Meanwhile, the embattled Minister of Interior, appears to grandstand on his mission to cause further defeat of his party in the elections ahead if his demand was not acceded to. This position was stated by his media aide, Mr. Sola Fasure, while reacting to a protest by the Youth Wing of the Osun State Chapter of the APC over what they alleged to be the Ministers “anti-party conduct” by giving supports to the PDP in order to cause the defeat of his party.
The protesters claimed that their protest was to rise against Aregebsola from making success of his declaration to work against the presidential bidding of the National Leader in 2023.
The Youth Leader, Mr. Goke Akinwunmi, said: “Aregbesola declared war on our Presidential candidate, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu in Ijebu Ijesha in one of his public outings. At that outing, he publicly declared his mission to strategize the political fall of Asiwaju Tinubu. May Allah reject his evil wish”.
Reacting to this, Aregbesola through his media aide, reiterated his position on this, saying the party could be “doomed to more defeat”.
Fasure was quoted by a national daily to have said: “For close to four years, the refrain of their (the youth’s) sponsors was that Aregbesola was no longer relevant in the APC and Osun Politics. He was subjected to scurrilous attacks, including armed invasion of his campaign office on two occasions… Their reaction has shown that they have not learnt any lesson and they may be doomed to a concatenation of more defeat”.
Civics Weekly gathered that the protest by the party’s Youth Wing was a response to an earlier similar action by the Osun Progressives, known to be Aregbe’s faction, in which they sought the disbandment of the current APC Executive structure in the state. Many observers have however queried the moral standing of Aregbe’s camp to make such demand having done the worst he could to “destroy” the party.
A chieftain of the party in Osun, who is a legal practitioner, queried what “legal and moral grounds the like of Adeoti has to challenge the APC structure in the state. According to him, “Adeoti is no longer a member of this Osun APC because he stands expelled from the party as we speak”. He alluded the reason for his position to the fact that he had taken the party to court, “even though he lost and I tell you for fact that our Party Constitution is very clear on what happens to any member that dares to do that”.
Article 21(5)(v) states that v. “Any member who files an action in court of law against the party or any of its officers on any matter or matters relating to the discharge of the duties of the party without first exhausting the avenues provided for in the Constitution shall automatically stand expelled from the party on filling such action and no appeal against expulsion as stipulated in Claus shall entertained until the withdrawal of the action from the court by the member”.
Another observer said: “It was no secret he and his men wished the failure of his party at the Osun poll and exulted after their wish was granted. Then barely two weeks after, his men began staging street protests, demanding the restructuring of the leadership of the APC in Osun and even giving dark hints that greater debacle could befall the party if a change in leadership was not carried out”. Concluding on this premise, Idowu Akinlotan said the party itself could be indulging Aregbesola into laying a bad example of party indiscipline with his grandstanding on the oxymoron of being rightly wrong.
He said: “In an election season so fateful as to define the future of the country, the flattering national APC itself and the fate of the Southwest in the scheme of things, the insouciant Mr. Aregbesola is allowed to do so much damage and still summons the effrontery to ask for the maiden he raped to be handed over to him as a trophy wife”.
Towing the path of this caution by Akinlotan, as the coincidence should suggest, some members of APC in Alimosho had decried what they described as “Enilolobo’s antics” to ensure Alimosho would return a very poor vote for the APC in the coming presidential and governorship elections. According to them, this was being planned to spite the state leadership for giving recognition to other factions within the party “with a 55/45% sharing equity”, which the party leader, Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu, began to implement with the constitution of the cabinet membership of all the six local council divisions making up the Alimosho Federal Constituency.
Speaking to Civics Weekly recently, a leader of the group who sought anonymity until the group perfected its “solution strategy”, said Enilolobo had “vowed” that there would be no party meetings of the APC in Alimosho until the state leadership reversed the sharing 45% slot given to the combined two other factions.
He said: “We thought this was a joke when he said it, but to be candid, it has become a reality that he (Enilolobo) is being driven by the ego that he is above the party. For close to two months now, since the official lists of both the LGAs and the various wards had been released, no party meetings had commenced, particularly in those LCDAs where his faction got the slots of LGA party Chairman.
“Where the other factions got the slot of LGA party Chairman, the council chairmen, because they belong to his (Enilolobo) faction decided to lock up the party secretariat as if it is their private property. The evidence is there for the state leadership to know because a party chieftain in Alimosho has taken them to court over this”.
Efforts by Civics Weekly to get the concerned factional leader, Alhaji Enilolobo, to respond to this allegation was unsuccessful. The message sent to his line was not replied to. This prompted this magazine to forward the request to another chieftain of his factional group who is also a serving member of the House of Assembly representing Alimosho Constituency 02, Hon Kehinde Joseph.
In his reply, Joseph debunked the allegation in its entirety. He claimed that some LGAs had started their meeting, while others would start theirs this week. “But this is not true. Igando/Ikotun held their meeting last week, likewise some others. The other LCDAs will be doing their own by next week”, he wrote back. And just about the time we set for the press, he forwarded a circular of a LGA Meeting purported to be convened by Agbado/Okeodo LCDA for Thursday, August 11, 2022 at Ekoro Road in Abule Egba.
However, some members from Igando/Ikotun LCDA disagreed with the Honorable. They claimed it was a factional meeting of their old structure that was convened.
Investigation by this magazine showed that Mosan/Okunola Party LGA led by opposition to Enilolobo camp had since commenced the LGA meeting along with its ward meetings, but the party Executives have been access to the official secretariat venue of the party. As this magazine found out on personal visit a couple of weeks back, the Secretariat was under lock and key with a large banner of “BATCO-Mandate Secretariat” hanging on the building.
Giving this report as a complaint to the Governor at a stakeholder meeting Babajide Sanwo-Olu held with party chairmen and aspirants on Tuesday, August 9, 2022, the party chairperson, Mrs. Opeyemi Adunni Akindele, revealed that she had been denied access to the secretariat thus far. She also said while she had commenced meeting at their official meeting venue, no members of the executive committee from the Enilolobo faction had ever attended. Rather, according another member of her Exco, they now “hold BATCO-Mandate” at the official party Secretariat.
The Governor who seemed to express surprise at hearing all this had promised to look into the issue, as our correspondent gathered.
Agbado-Okeodo LCDA was found to have similar problem with Mosan/Okunola by this magazine. Both of them shares the problem of having the Council Chairman that belongs to the Enilolobo faction.
In Egbe-Idimu LCDA and Alimosho LG (Egbeda/Akowonjo) where the Party Chairmen and Council Chairmen belong to the same faction -- the Enilolobo group -- no meeting of the party has been held in the past three months to date. However, it was learnt that Alimosho had also convened her various Ward Meetings for Thursday.
Egbe-Idimu LCDA, which is the residential council of both Enilolobo and Hon Joseph does not seem to have any date in sight as at the time this report went to press. As a member of Ward C of the Council observed, “this may account for why Hon Kehinde Joseph could not cite his LCDA, as one local government that has started meeting”.
Those who spoke to this magazine on their fear about this issue said there could be no other reason why Enilolobo had “instructed his faction” not to hold any party meeting except with intention to blackmail the party leadership of the Lagos State APC into forced negotiation that will recognize only his faction. This antic follows their group counterpart's successful anti-party exploits in Osun”. They alluded this to a video that allegedly showed Enilolobo and some members of his camp in high exultation scene as PDP was declared to have won the last Osun State Governorship election.
Another party faithful posited that the Enilolobo camp did not want a meeting of the shared Executive membership with the opposition faction because they do not want to demoralize members of their faction who will be seeing their colleagues who rose against Enilolobo leadership now sitting as Executive Committee members of their various wards and LGAs.
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