By Richard Akintade
A former governorship aspirant of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP in Osun State, Dr Akin Ogunbiyi, yesterday declared that the party belongs to every member of the political fold and warned senator Ademola Adeleke, his supporters and family to desist from their avowed mission to force him out of the party.
In a statement signed and made available to pressmen in Osogbo, the state capital by his Press Secretary, Ismail Afolabi, Ogunbiyi decried the Adelekes for deliberately misinforming the National leadership of the party and the general public about his person, politics and philosophy of life.
He expressed displeasure at the way the family had been blaming him for whatever political woe it encounters in its struggle to clinch the governorship seat of the state, saying that the woes were glaringly self contrived and inflicted.
He told the Adelekes to cast their memories back to events that culminated to whatever calamitous situation they have found themselves lately, noting that it wasn’t him that contrived the NECO Examination scenario at the Ojo Aro Senior Secondary School in 2017 which is now a subject of litigation in the courts.
The Chartered Insurer wondered how logical it was for the family to link the examination scandal to him, admonishing the family to endeavour to carry its own cross rather than engaging in blame games, always.
He added that the Adelekes’ absurd resolve to eliminate him from the PDP as it did using the same method it deployed in sending others out of the party would never materialise, stressing that, “PDP as a political party belongs to every member of the party and nobody can claim any monopoly of membership or ownership.”
Ogunbiyi stated further: “If everybody had been driven away from the party prior to the family’s entry in June 2017 or thereabouts, it would have been practically impossible for senator Ademola Adeleke to become a Senator in 2017, a few hours after joining the PDP and party politics.”
“Prior to the governorship primaries, they concocted lie that the EFCC had arrested and detained me for weeks. It is on record that the family also claimed that I was sponsored by Asiwaju Bola Tinubu of APC to contest Osun governorship ticket on the platform of the PDP, going as far as planning to forge and present to the public, N500 million (Five Hundred Million Naira) cheque purportedly issued in my favour by Chief Bola Tinubu to support my gubernatorial ambition to corroborate their tissues of lies. Later, they still claimed to have settled all my campaign expenses after the primary elections.”
“While all these were happening to me, I neither complained nor blamed it on anybody. I took it as my own political cross and carried it. It’s the faithful God that punctured their lies.”
“In the last few days, they have orchestrated another round of campaign of calumny and physical attacks on my supporters, assaulting and threatening them and their families with expulsion from the party.”
“Yesterday, acting the script of the Adelekes, South West Zonal Secretary of our party, Reverend Bunmi Jenyo, in a press release, insinuated that the action initiated by some aggrieved members of our party in court was ‘pre-planned, prepared and signed’ at my residence in Ileogbo. This preposterous and ridiculously ingenious claim and others before it were manipulative imagination of the Adelekes.”
“Having nothing to prove, I convincingly worked hard, sacrificed and invested resources to ensure the success of our great party, albeit Senator Adeleke Ademola at the last gubernatorial election. Obviously, the results would have been different. As peace loving members of the party, we will continue to conduct ourselves within the ambit of the law and will not compromise our loyalty to the party.”
“For the umpteenth time, they should carry by themselves and for themselves, their own cross too. I wish them the very best as always from the depth of my heart. PDP belongs to all of us and nobody can claim monopoly of ownership,” Ogunbiyi remarked.
