EXCLUSIVE: How Aregbesola pressed for postponement of Osun primary to avoid defeat

Western Post can report today that perhaps sensing that a clear defeat was staring him in the face at the just-ended primary election of the All Progressives Congress, APC, for the Osun governorship poll, former governor of the state and Minister of Interior, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola, moved decisively to achieve a postponement of the intra-party poll.

Governor Adegboyega Oyetola overwhelmingly defeated Aregbesola’s candidate in the Saturday election, Alhaji Moshood Adeoti popularly known as Shehu at the state-wide direct party primary last Saturday.

However, a few days before the election, Western Post learnt that Aregbesola approached Abuja headquarters of the party’s National Caretaker Committee to seek  a postponement of the election.

An emissary from the party secretariat, Western Post can reveal, approached former Interim Chairman of the party who is also a former governor of the state, Chief Bisi Akande, to demand a postponement of the primary.

A similar request was also made on the Committee of four governors that interfaced with Aregbesola on the Osun matter.

Aregbesola’s camp had sought that the primary be postponed to pave the grounds for more discussions and negotiations between the former governor and his successor. That would have enabled Aregbesola to extract some concessions from Governor Oyetola, specifically to seek a share of party’s structure in the state.

But Akande who is perceived as the overall leader of the party in the state refused, it was learnt.

According to Western Post sources, the former APC chairman said having earlier spurned all entreaties for peace and called out prominent leaders of the party like himself and Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, the matter should be settled at the polls.

“Only election can settle this. And the settlement should wait till after the primary,” Chief Akande was said to have told the emissaries from the party secretariat.

This means Aregbesola’s candidate, Adeoti, and Governor Oyetola should battle it out at the election. At the behest of the party secretariat, the Chairman of Progressives Governors’ Forum and Governor of Kebbi State, Alhaji Atiku Bagudu, had also telephoned Chief Akande over the matter.

Like Chief Akande, Governor Oyetola himself opposed the idea of a postponement, opting for the primary election.

Confronted with the reality of the holding of the poll, one influential member of the Aregbesola political family name withheld had retorted that, “That means they (Oyetola’s camp) are not ready for peace and reconciliation.”

When the results of the poll began pouring in, the votes for Adeoti were being tallied on social media as votes for Aregbesola/Adeoti. After collation of results from the wards, party members showed their preference for Oyetola with 222,169 votes while Adeoti polled 12,921 as a very distant runner up and former House of Representatives Deputy Speaker, Lasun Yusuff, got a miserly 460 votes.

For the direct primary election, 247,207 members were accredited to vote out of the about 408,697 members of the APC in Osun State, while total votes cast was 235,550. The primary election had no invalid vote.