Ondo APC crisis lingers as gov, chieftains remain adamant

• PDP woos Akeredolu with return ticket
There seems to be no end in sight yet to the internal wrangling besetting the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) in Ondo State.

The tone was reverberated yesterday in Akure as the South West Coordinator of the Presidential Campaign in the recently concluded general elections, Chief Olusola Oke, accused Governor Oluwarotimi Akeredolu of destabilising the party through his aides.

In a statement by his media assistant, Rotimi Ogunleye, Oke enjoined the state chief executive to call his appointees to order.

He claimed that Akeredolu and the party leadership in the state rebuffed all attempts to reconcile aggrieved members following the fallout of the September 3, 2016 gubernatorial primary.

The situation, however, got aggravated with the suspension of the governor by the national leadership for anti-party activities at the last polls.

Akeredolu was reportedly queried for supporting his cronies to contest against APC candidates on the platform of the Action Alliance (AA) in the 2019 elections, leading to the massive defeat of the party in the state.

But a former commissioner in Osun, Bola Ilori, absolved the APC’s national leader, Bola Tinubu, and the national chairman, Adams Oshiomhole, and erstwhile Governor Rauf Aregbesola of any wrongdoing.

He maintained that Akeredolu’s “vindictive traits have aided disharmony within Ondo APC. It is strange for a man that has become governor for years to still be begrudging an intra-party primary that preceded his tenure.”

In their swift reactions, the Special Adviser to the Governor on Special Duties, Dr. Doyin Odebowale, and his Senior Special Assistant on Strategy, Research and Documentation, Kunle Adebayo, accused the national leaders of the party of plotting against their principal.

According to them, Akeredolu has been meticulous with the resources of the state and would resist attempts to foist a stooge on the state, even as they boasted that the governor would win a re-election in 2021.

Meanwhile, there are insinuations that the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) was making an overture to hand the governor its ticket for a second term in office.

Adebayo had tactically refuted the speculation in a recent interview.