By Ayodele Oni
The Osun State Chapter of the All Progressives Congress (APC) has described as unnecessary the support of People’s Democratic Party (PDP) Senators in the State who claimed they gave former Governor Gboyega Oyetola before his clearance as Minister by the senate.
The party cautioned the ruling PDP, the State Governor and his co-travellers to desist from talking as if the political fortune of the leader of the party, Oyetola, depends on their whims and caprices.
Oyetola, was screened for Ministerial appointment by the Senate last Friday during which Senator Lere Oyewumi, the Deputy Senate Minority Leader and Senator Francis Fadahunsi, spoke glowingly about Oyetola, the Osun State ministerial nominee.
Oyewumi in his eulogy of Oyetola disclosed that the State Governor, Adeleke, had directed all the three PDP Senators representing the State in the Senate to support the Ministerial nomination of Oyetola.
Osun State APC Chairman, Sooko Tajudeen Lawal, in a statement in Osogbo, on Tuesday, stated that the support of the three PDP Senators given to Oyetola during the screening exercise was good but not spectacular.
Lawal told Governor Adeleke, the PDP, the three senators and all the members and supporters of the ruling party in Osun State that their opposition to the nomination of Oyetola as a Minister would not have prevented the former Osun State governor from scaling through the screening exercise.
He explained that “the state PDP, the Governor and his co-travellers are only making a mountain out of a mole hill by making a superlative issue out of the so-called Osun State Senatorial support which intention could not have been genuine.
“There wasn’t anything spectacular about the support given to Alhaji Gboyega Oyetola by the three PDP Senators during the screening of the former Osun State Governor for Ministerial nomination in the Senate.
“There is no rule in the Senate that makes such a support mandatory as a prerequisite to be screened.
“The opposition of the three PDP Osun senators and Governor Adeleke would not have blocked the chances of Oyetola from becoming a Minister.
“The occasion was only tapped as an opportunity for the Osun State PDP Senators to join the winning team and as an opportunity for them not to wash their dirty linen in the public.
“The Adeleke and PDP Senators’ support for Oyetola during the Ministerial screening was a ploy to assuage our members and supporters in Osun State for the extra-judicial killings of about 30 of the APC members by the PDP thugs during the series of the past elections in the state.
“Apart from the fact that Governor Adeleke would need the services of Oyetola as a minister, it should resonate in the memory of the Osun PDP town criers and their principal that while a Minister represents the President in all the states making up of the country, a Governor only superintends his State.”
