JOKE ORELOPE BEGINS HARMONISATION OF ALIMOSHO APC FACTIONS, PROPOSES FORMATION OF “ASM” TO DRIVE CAMPAIGN FOR TINUBU’

It’s a welcome and appreciable development – Onifade, Zanuth

By Razaq Adedeji Jimoh and Ololade Barakat

THE former Deputy Governor of Lagos State and currently the Director General of Sustainable Development Goal (SDG), Mrs Adejoke Orelope-Adefulire, may have begun harmonization of the party factions and reconciliation of aggrieved party aspirants and members from the last primary elections of the All Progressives Congress (APC). This development came to the knowledge of Civics Weekly on the strength of her meeting with some of the aspirants at the Radisson Hotel, GRA, Ikeja yesterday. It also gathered that she may have taken these steps as a proactive measure to prevent any potential election sabotage as a backlash of the final name that came out on the list of Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) as the candidate for House of Representatives to represent Alimosho Federal Constituency. Sources revealed that contrary to the name of Hon Ganiyu Ayuba earlier being paraded as the candidate of the APC, the incumbent member of the House, Hon Olufemi Adebanjo, (aka Eyes Open) was said to have come out as authentic party candidate.

The indications that Mrs. Adefulire had resolved to begin harmonization of all existing party factions into one group began early this week when she was reported to have convened a meeting of all party leaders believed to have worth a composition of new Apex Leadership of the Aimosho Progressives. This version of the meeting was however reported to have been rescheduled to another date because some of the party chieftains was absent. Few hours later on same date, the special Assistant to the President on SDG, was said to have gone into another round of meeting with another layer of the party elders and leaders convened from across all the six divisions of Alimosho. According to sources, she was said to have appealed to all in attendance on the need for Alimosho to go into the coming 2023 general elections as a great one team. Sequel to that, she was said to have announced the need to integrate all existing factions into a new group she declared to be “Asiwaju Solidarity Movement” (ASM). This proposed formation of new “unity group” as some members that spoke with this magazine described it, would later be confirmed by some aspirants that attended a latter forum with her.

About noon of yesterday, it got to the newsroom of Civics Weekly that Orelope-Adefulire had gone into another session of meeting with all aspirants of the party as another step to make the Alimosho APC stronger towards the 2023 election. One of the aspirants who attended the meeting at Radisson Hotel, Alhaji Babatunde Semiu Onifade, described the meeting as “Peaceful and fruitful”. He was an aspirant to the House of Representatives for Alimosho Federal Constituency. Another House of Representatives Aspirant, Alhaji Nojeem Ewesesan, also confirmed the meeting and his attendance but unable to wait for the forum to commence. “I left when they did not start in time as scheduled”, he said. Hon Muibat Zanuth, a female aspirant who contested against Hon Kehinde Joseph for the Lagos State House of Assembly, Alimosho Constituency 02, was also at the meeting. She described it as a “reconciliatory gesture”, adding that Mrs. Adefulire’s intervention came as a role of “mother, leader and role model” to her.

She said: “(Adefulire) advised every one not to work against the party because it will be in our own advantage if we work in order to achieve victory towards the upcoming 2023 elections. She also advised that we must support all APC candidates and take Asiwaju’s victory as priority”. Hon Zanuth also revealed that the occasion was used by the former Deputy Governor to unveil a new organization she would like Alimosho Progressives to use in working for the victory of Tinubu. She said further: “Her Excellency said as we know that Alimosho is Tinubu’s Country, we should ensure we join hands with our (respective local) leaders to move the train of newly created Asiwaju Solidarity Movement (ASM) in order to support our leader, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu. “The meeting revealed to be a good development in Alimosho and all the aspirants were happy about it. Honestly, I really commend her leadership styles while she proves to us that she is a mother, leader and role model”.

Meanwhile, investigation by Civics Weekly showed that the backlash of the party’s primary election may be deeper and potentially grievous than it appears. Accordingly, the Senior Special assistant to the President on SDG may have taken all these steps to counter any foreseeable damage that may anticipated to the Local Government’s feasibility of returning huge votes to the APC victory in 2023. As sources confided in this magazine, a factional group in the Alimosho APC, believed to belong to the former Osun State Governor and current Interior Minister, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola, may have become what Yoruba would want to describe as “Ageku ejo” – half-cut snake – following the outcome of the INEC’s final lists of the candidates to contest in the 2023 general elections. The group “known as BATCO-Mandate”, is believed to have been sparked into anger for another round of intra party crisis following their discovery that their candidate, who they claimed to have won the House of Representatives to represent Alimosho Federal Constituency, Ganiyu Ayuba, was not the official candidate of the party after all. With this development coming close to the general elections, according to some party members, there are fears that the group led by Alhaji Abdullahi Enilolobo, may want to “work against the party” to ensure the party will not also enjoy a taste of victory in the local government. It may be recalled that the loss of the last Governorship election by the party in Osun State was blamed on an alleged anti-party activities of the Minister, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola and his new group allegedly created earnestly to work against the party – The Osun Progressives (TOP). As late as a couple of weeks back, the was also published to have reaffirmed his threat, through his media aide, that “more defeats await the party” in the 2013 elections.

Some party members in Alimosho that spoke with this magazine said there was need to dread the Aregbe camp in Alimosho in a plan to work against the party, given the new development that they appeared “to have lost their big cash in the primary election”. But a party chieftain also said that the Enilolobo group had not lost anything because “there was never any primary election for the House of Representatives” in the Local Government in the first place. He said this was a fact they would not want to accept in order to put the party into crises towards the election.

He explained: “in the first place, they were claiming to have won a primary election that was never conducted. then they began to bully the party and cooked a result which they insisted the party must accept as an outcome of the primary. With that, some of the co-aspirants went to court to challenge that result. INEC came to the court to testify that it did not witness any conduct of APC Primary election for the House of Representatives in Alimosho. “In fact, the truth is that they instigated violence to disrupt the election on May 27th. Two people were lost to that primary election. So, we do not know where they got the claim that KK (Hon Ayuba) had been submitted as the party’s candidate before today”.