Former governor of Osun State, Prince Olagunsoye Oyinlola has taken a swipe at a member of the Board of Truestees (BoT) of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Alhaji Shuaib Oyedokun, accusing him of fanning embers of discord in the party.
Oyinlola, in a statement he personally signed, said it was unbecoming of an elder like Oyedokun to seek to create a rift between President Goodluck Jonathan and former President Olusegun Obasanjo with unguarded statements based on falsehood.
Oyedokun was quoted in a report on Monday as accusing Obasanjo of causing divisions in the PDP by criticising Jonathan last Wednesday in Dutse, Jigawa State.
Oyinlola said no fifth columnist can succeed through political subterfuge in creating a rift between the two foremost leaders of the PDP.
He added that he suspected Oyedokun of being uneasy about current efforts by stakeholders to resolve all differences in the party, hence the statement.
“It does not lie in the mouth of Alhaji Oyedokun to romanticise about unity in the PDP after planting his own son, Femi Oyedokun, in the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) and putting his wife in Accord Party. An elder that is genuinely interested in the unity of the party would not ask his son to go to the ACN seven days after his party lost power in Osun State and even lobby for the son to be made a commissioner in an opposition government. I expect Alhaji Oyedokun to first bring his own household back into the PDP before talking about anything in the party,” he said.
Oyinlola said Oyedokun, as an elder, should have found out what Obasanjo actually said in Jigawa before concluding that the former President attacked Jonathan.
” I have painstakingly found out that what former President Obasanjo said in Jigawa was that he was happy Governor Sule Lamido did not disappoint him, given the role he (Obasanjo) played in his emergence as governor. He then concluded with a Yoruba proverb: “you can help someone get a job, but you cannot help the person do the job. We got Lamido the job and he has done it well.”. That was it. There was no innuendo or allusion to President Jonathan in the statement which Oyedokun has now clung to to further cause divisions in the polity.
” I am particularly worried that Alhaji Oyedokun did not agree with our BOT chairman, Chief Tony Anenih, who, just last week at the PDP family dinner, called for peace and the resolution of all differences in the party. Could Alhaji Oyedokun be carrying out the usual assignment of throwing spanners in the works of genuine members of the PDP who are working hard to reconcile all its leaders and members and reposition it for the tasks ahead? What could actually be his motive?
” I asked the above questions because in 2007 after Alhaji Oyedokun abandoned the PDP and joined forces with its opponents to found the Action Congress, and then lost out in the power struggle in that opposition party, it took me time to beg Chief Obasanjo to accept him back into the fold and to even make him a BOT member of the PDP. It is very ironic that Alhaji Oyedokun is now using that position to attack his benefactor unjustly and seek to destroy once again, the PDP, the platform that has given him the visibility he currently enjoys .
” I also read that he claimed Chief Obasanjo is planning to go to another political party. I think by now Alhaji Oyedokun ought to know that Chief Obasanjo does not have the character of a betrayer. He is also not what in the military we call a deserter. He is a leader of the PDP and I am sufficiently close enough to him to know that he is ever committed to the growth and survival of the party and of the nation,” Oyinlola said.
Oyinlola also appealed to all PDP members in the South-West to remain steadfast in their support for President Jonathan and the government’s transformation agenda.
He further urged them to see current challenges as temporary and surmountable.
