Bayo stopped Bayo allowed, as Oyo APC’s Governorship Candidate emerges – NEWS ANALYSIS

*Political coast dims for Presidential, governorship in Oyo ahead 2019 – Investigations

* “If Lagos primary is worth postponement, why not Oyo’s? Why the rush because of Shittu?”

* Ajimobi is responsible for the NYSC joker against me to stop me from succeeding him – Minister

*Shittu asks supporters to keep hope alive, be loyal to APC

By BASHIR ADEFAKA

“If they are not afraid of Shittu, why did they allow postponement of Lagos primary election for the third time now and fail to do same to resolve the Oyo State issue?  Is it because the one in Lagos is Tinubu’s interest being challenged but here in Ibadan with Shittu it is Buhari’s interest being challenged or what? If Tinubu’s interest is worth postponing primary election as huge as governorship in Lagos for, what stops the APC from also postponing same election in Oyo just to ensure equity protecting the interest of the President also? This is pure hypocrisy and I think the National Chairman, His Excellency Comrade Adams Oshiomhole should note that he is in office at Wuse II not only for one part but all.”

It was the tale of stopping one Bayo for another Bayo to emerge, when barely 48 hours after its disqualification of Adebayo Shittu from participating in the Oyo State governorship primary election the National Secretariat of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) picked who its flagbearer would be for the state in the February 2019 governorship election.

At the governorship primary election, held on Sunday in the state capital of Ibadan, former Deputy Governor of Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Oloye Bayo Adelabu, son of popular Ibadan politician of the old – “Penkelemess” – emerged as Oyo APC candidate.

While some APC members in Oyo State loyal to Governor Ishaq Abiola Ajimobi may have been jubilating over the emergence of Adelabu, The DEFENDER gathered that the political coast in the state may be so dimmed for the ruling Party if the many grievances it is carrying to the February 2019 elections, either national or state, are not properly addressed.

Reason for this, it was gathered, was due to the domineering style of Governor Ishaq Abiola Adeyemi Akanji Ajimobi, to whom accusing fingers have pointed concerned the disunity that the state chapter of the has witnessed over the 2019 jostle.

Many of the strong hands in the party had since defected to either ADC, PDP or even Accord for the same reason while those that stayed behind claiming it was time for them to save their party from collapse have been edged out one after the other.

It will be recalled that when the news of “NYSC” against the Minister of Communications, Dr. Abdulraheem Adebayo Shittu broke out, Governor Ajimobi’s hand writing was what many said they saw on the wall of it.

This reporter therefore travelled from Lagos to Ibadan to meet with the stakeholders including the Minister, Shittu, although some aides made it impossible to see Governor Ajimobi, which some that knew about effort of this report to see him described as “arrogance”.

From all the submissions, Shittu appeared to be moving ahead of all the schemes pushing the “NYSC Certificate” thing as a leader of the Muhammadu Buhari Organisation (MBO) in Oyo State told this online newspaper at the Samonda Estate home of the Minister how the transparency nature of Dr. Shittu was not enough to teach lessons to the senses of some politicians.

He said, “How can you accuse somebody of not having NYSC certificate when you know that his case did not warrant to have such document and that he never pretended to have an NYSC certificate so that one can now say he has presented fake NYSC certificate?

“His case is very clear and whoever wants to drag it with him must be able to go to the constitutional court of jurisdiction to make his case. Anyone that knew the National Party of Nigeria (NPN) during the Second Republic would appreciate while Barrister Adebayo Shittu should rather be given accolades than the hypocrisies being displayed against him.

“It is quite worth national commendation for as long as Nigeria history remains to have a young Nigerian coming out of school waiting to go for youth service only for his people to say ‘no, don’t go. We have elected you and that is all that we want. Go and serve your father land in our state House of Assembly’. It is rare to have such thing happening by anybody in this country but Shittu was that great among his people.

“To work against the will of his people, the NPN said ‘no, he cannot have the mandate for the parliament until he has gone to do his youth service.’ If the purveyors of this current NYSC certificate issues know their worthy, they should have asked themselves a question: ‘For NPN to have been so keen about stopping Shittu at that age 25, they must have known his political weight. If then the court ruled in his favour that the election by his people to serve in the parliament was equated to national service, then what point do we have against him?’ They should have asked themselves this question.

“Whether they remember to ask themselves the question or not, they definitely knew that already lost the game until our great Party the APC, suddenly after it had cleared the Minister and six others to participate in the governorship primary election amidst the NYSC certificate hypocrisy, turned round again and disqualified him on the same baseless reason that his enemies were flying around. It there gets one so shock if this is the same APC that we all call our own Party.

“If they are not afraid of Shittu, why did they allow postponement of Lagos primary election for the third time now and fail to do same to resolve the Oyo State issue?  Is it because the one in Lagos is Tinubu’s interest being challenged but here in Ibadan with Shittu it is Buhari’s interest being challenged or what? If Tinubu’s interest is worth postponing primary election as huge as governorship in Lagos for, what stops the APC from also postponing same election in Oyo just to ensure equity protecting the interest of the President also? This is pure hypocrisy and I think the National Chairman, His Excellency Comrade Adams Oshiomhole should note that he is in office at Wuse II not only for one part but all.  Why are we fighting Saraki for working against President Buhari if this can be happening within the party claiming to be behind the President against the Senate President?

“So, I can tell you seriously speaking that the political coast is dimmed for our Party in the coming election, God being willing,” he said.

It will also be recalled that the APC turning round to disqualify Shittu occurred the moment President Muhammadu Buhari jetted out of the country to attend the United Nations’ General Assembly in New York, United States of America.

Another party faithful, who spoke on the controversial victory of Bayo Adebayo, said the reason Governor Ajimobi worked against the Shittu’s governorship ambition was because of his conviction that a “Penkelemess” cannot defeat an Oke Ogun that Adebayo Shittu represents in any free and fair primary election, knowing that Abuja Boys were going to be keen about how the exercise would go.

Adelabu’s emergence came as the last man standing after Shittu had been pushed off the track, Chief Niyi Akintola, had also pulled out from the race joining other aspirants.

The DEFENDER gathered that eight people obtained the APC’s Expression of Interest and Nomination Forms out of over 20 aspirants that showed interest earlier.

Seven out of the eight aspirants, including the Minister of Communications, Dr. Adebayo Shittu, were screened and cleared to contest by the All Progressives Congress (APC) National Secretariat before the same National Secretariat went round and screened out Shittu for allegedly not participating in the mandatory one year national youth service, which has been described as matter of litigation.

Another reason party faithful are complaining is also that APC National Secretariat got two allegations, one from Ajimobi though in disguise, it was learned, against Shittu who they said never pretended to have NYSC certificate but served by court verdict, and the other from Shittu against Ajimobi who the Minister said, from good authority, has no NYSC certificate.

The Minister stated this when he reportedly appeared on Channels Television Politics Today.

He claimed that Governor Ajimobi used the last card of NYSC to get him at the party’s national level. The APC chieftain said he had appealed the case and awaiting outcome of the APC committee.

“Ajimobi has been telling his supporters if Shittu succeeds him, he will be in jail. He believes I am a principled man that he cannot control anyhow.”

When asked why he thinks Ajimobi orchestrated his disqualification, the saki-born politician said the governor was responsible.

“Meanwhile I heard it from good authority that he did not have a NYSC certificate but when we get there we will cross it.”

In the meantime, Dr. Shittu had urged his supporters to continue to keep hope alive and be loyal to “our great party” as, according to him, the matter, which he said was believed to have happened by a script being acted by the National Secretariat, was being resolved.