Factional members of the Osun State chapter of the All Progressives Congress (APC) loyal to the Minister of Interior and former governor of the state, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola, have said the state Governor, Gboyega Oyetola’s fight with them cost him his re-election.

Members of the faction, known as The Osun Progressives, spoke after the Independent National Electoral Commission declared the candidate of the Peoples Dempocratic Party (PDP), Senator Ademola Adeleke, winner of the election.

Those who spoke included the Leader of TOP, Lowo Adebiyi; the Chairman of the Aregbesola’s faction of the APC, Mr Rasaq Salinsile and the factional Publicity Secretary, Abiodun Agboola,

The Returning Officer for the election and Vice Chancellor of the University of Lagos, Prof Oluwatoyin Ogundipe, said Adeleke got a total of 403,371 votes to beat the incumbent governor who polled 375,027 votes in the keenly contested race.

Before his electoral loss, Oyetola, had in 2018 defeated Adeleke after a run-off, with the support of his predecessor, Aregbesola and former Lagos state governor and now, APC presidential candidate, Bola Tinubu.

Shortly after winning the election, Oyetola, who was the Chief of Staff to Aregbesola for eight years, parted ways with the interior affairs minister and his loyalists, who alleged that the governor abandoned his predecessor’s programmes.

A former Osun State Commissioner for Local Government and Chieftaincy Affairs during Aregbesola’s administration, Kolapo Alimi, had predicted that Oyetola would not win re-election for betraying Aregbesola’s trust, an allegation the governor denied.

Shedding light on the challenges which robbed the party of victory, the Chairman of the APC faction in Osun state, Salinsile, said it was obvious that the lack of unity in the party allegedly caused by “Oyetola’s politics of segregation” cost the APC victory at the poll.

Salinsile said he had seen the electoral defeat ahead of time and ran to party leaders, including the ex-national chairman of the APC, Chief Bisi Akande, for help.

According to him, the APC presidential candidate, Senator Bola Tinubu, once sent an emissary to address their grievances but the person never returned to collect the complaint list.

He further said Oyetola should not have played politics of segregation or blacklisted anyone linked to Aregbesola.

The factional chairman stated, “But it is an obvious fact that Governor Isiaka Oyetola came to destroy our party. We all worked as a united family to install him as governor in spite of all odds. But the moment he got there, he started politics of segregation and divide and rule tactics which he thought he could use to whip everybody back in line; particularly, he was against anything Aregbesola.

“How on earth can you be a Chief of Staff to a sitting governor for good eight years and pretended to him to be what you were not. I have never met that kind of person in my life and I am not a young man.

“He was not yet sworn in when he started the segregation, politics of hatred. Anybody that have anything to do with the immediate past governor of the state, Aregbesola; automatically, you become one of the members in his black book.”

Speaking on how Oyetola allegedly mismanaged the party, Salinsile said, “How can the leader of a house behave that way and you think that house will be peaceful? We said it severally without mincing words so that those who have ears will hear. We went to our leaders starting with Baba Akande to the national chairman of the APC. Asiwaju (Bola Tinubu) sent one Alhaji Masari from Katsina state to us; he was the place holder for the APC presidential candidate.

“He said our resolutions should be written down that he would come back the following day to collect it, saying Asiwaju gave him that assignment. Up till today, we have not seen him. He never came back. Three times, Oyetola sent words to me saying if he calls me will I pick his call? If he invites me, will I honour the invitation? And I said he was still my governor and that I owe him a lot of respect.

“Every time, he will always disappoint. He later said the matter was beyond his power. In whose power was it then? That means there is somebody somewhere remote-controlling him. This result was expected.”

On the way out, Salinsile said the party has been demolished, adding that the members would have to return to the drawing board.

“We now have to go to the drawing board and look for where we have erred and make amends. It was a very clear issue. It was Oyetola administration that brought calamity to our party. The remaining leaders must act now,” he admonished.

The factional Publicity Secretary of the APC in Osun State, Abiodun Agboola, also attributed the APC loss in the governorship poll to the internal wrangling within the party.

He said, “The election has come and gone and winner has emerged. I believe the people have spoken and from the result our party lost. No organisation can go into an election with division without suffering a humiliating defeat the progressives suffered in Osun on Saturday.

“Part of our problem is the internal wrangling and we clamoured that the party should intervene to resolve the crisis before the election. What led to the internal wrangling is exclusion and when you exclude some people from participating, that is the kind of result you will get.

“I hope the party will learn from this and set things straight because we are still going for the presidential election in 2023 and that is some few months away.”

Speaking on Sunday, the TOP Chairman, Adebiyi, said the party had learnt its lessons and would return to the drawing board to restrategise for the 2023 elections.

Adebiyi stated, “But you are aware that we have an unsettled internal crisis. Secondly, the mobilisation was not enough.

“There are a lot of issues that the state government is battling with -civil servants’ issues, the issue of backlog of allowances and things like that; even the economic situation of our country, the unemployment rate – All of these affected our party, but the main thrust is that we are not united as a party.

“What happened is very unfortunate, but this affords us a lesson to learn. We are now going to the drawing board and then restrategise for 2023. We believe that before the 2023 elections, we would have had a strong and united APC in Osun State.”

Adebiyi debunked insinuations that the caucus loyal to Aregbesola did not vote for the APC, insisting that TOP mobilised members for the election.

“We issued a release before the election that all members should vote for APC and they complied. All of us in TOP worked for the APC, but unfortunately, victory was not on our side,” he explained.

He assured that ToP members would not defect from the party, saying the loss of the governorship poll was a challenge which the party would collectively overcome.

The TOP boss said, “We are going to overcome this challenge. Nobody is thinking of defecting; defection is not the next thing to do now. Our own is to sit down together, restrategise and chart the way forward. We have important elections ahead in 2023, we will work on how to win the elections.”