The former Osun Commissioner for Information and Strategy, Mr. Sunday Akere on Thursday declared that the governorship ticket of the All Progressives Congress, APC for the forthcoming 2026 gubernatorial election remains intact in the hands of the former Osun Governor and current Minister of Marine and Blue Economy, Adegboyega Oyetola.
Akere cleared the air that Oyetola is the only person that has the first right of refusal if he doesn’t want to contest in the next guber poll as he has all chances to contest and win.
The former Information Commissioner made the statements while fielding questions from members of the League of Veteran Journalists, Osun State Chapter during their monthly media parley held at the Osun State Press Centre of the Nigeria Union of Journalists, in Osogbo, the state capital.
Akere described the ex-Governor Oyetola as a man of integrity, honesty and sociopolitical sagacity whose tremendous impacts while serving the state can not be overemphasized.
He bemoaned the myriad of issues that culminated into the loss of the party in the 2022 governorship election noting that ‘Oyetola lost to opposition PDP then due to manipulatory conspiracy of power-that-be.
Akere insisted that the last gubernatorial election was not lost by the APC but largely manipulated by unscrupulous elements within the APC whose agenda was to fight the then presidential candidate of the party, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu from emerging president in the last general election.
The former Osun Special Adviser on Political matters to the ex-Governor Oyetola added that aside the obvious electoral misconduct and palpable illegalities perpetrated by the PDP during and after the last gubernatorial election, the whole gamut was aided by the foes within the progressive family who believed that once Oyetola emerges it would ease the emergence of Tinubu.
Akere noted that the party remains resilient and resolute to return to power come 2026 saying the opposition party was prepared and battle ready to wrestle power from the ruling PDP led by Governor Ademola Adeleke.
“As you all know, our party didn’t lose 2022 governorship election as it was painted in the public domain. We all knew that it was only in Osun that election was allowed to run till 11:00pm without being challenged or averted by any concerned authority. This is just by the way because the only thing that culminated into the make-believe loss was largely due to political manipulations of the power-that-be.
“We all know that some people worked against the success of the party because of what they wanted to become. They did everything possible to stop Oyetola from emerging victorious because of their shallow mindedness calculated to stop Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu from emerging victorious in the last presidential election forgetting that ‘man proposes God disposes’
“So, I can make bold to say that the loss was due to political manipulations as we all saw what happened even after the election. But the business won’t be as usual as we are resolute to wrestle power from the incumbent Governor come 2026 gubernatorial election”, Akere reiterated.
The current member of the Governing Council of Ilaro Federal Polytechnic while responding on the choice of governorship candidate for the APC in the next guber poll, said “as of today, our party’s ticket is in the hands of Marine and Blue Economy Minister, Adegboyega Oyetola and he is the only one who has the first right of refusal if he feels he is not contesting”
He reiterated the readiness of the party to square up with the ruling PDP to return to power saying there were lot of things for the party to campaign in the next gubernatorial election.
According to him, the current government in the state has failed on many of its electoral promises particularly the overblown statements to clear all the backlog salary and pension arrears within six months as widely stated by Governor Adeleke while canvassing for support seeking votes from the electorate.
Akere who berated Governor Adeleke’s woeful performance and his inability to justify the humongous funds to the tune of over 400billion naira from all sources in the last 23 months of being at the helms of affairs said APC would leave no stone unturned to take maximum advantage of the current government’s woes to campaign and win the next gubernatorial election.
“It is unfortunate that our state could remain as it is today inspite of the huge resources available to the current government in the state. Just imagine a state receiving billions of naira every month with nothing to show for it. They are spending our common patrimony on frivolities instead of social investment programmes capable of impacting lives of the people.
“Instead of doing the needful, it has always been propaganda here and there. They are paying lip service and politicizing everything as if everything is about politics. Just imagine a governor that boastfully claimed to pay all the backlog salary and pension arrears within six months of coming to office still battling with the payment after two years despite the crazy allocation accruing to the state government so far.
“Anyway, we are not here for political campaign, when the time comes, we will reel out our facts and dish out to the public our verifiable data on the abysmal performance of the current government and I can assure you that we are prepared to wrestle power from the current government “, Akere
