Sunday Akere, former Commissioner for Information and Strategy in the administration of ex-governor, Rauf Aregbesola, speaks to BOLA BAMIGBOLA about the performance of the Peoples Democratic Party-led government in Osun State after one year
what is the current state of affairs in the Osun State chapter of the All Progressives Congress?
The All Progressive Congress is one in Osun State (as an opposition party), and after the last series of elections, we are doing everything possible to put our house in order and ensure that we forge ahead as one united and focused party ahead of the 2026 election.
You will recall that on May 1, 2023, the leader of the party in the state, ex-governor Adegboyega Oyetola, and the leadership of the party constituted a repositioning committee headed by Prof Isaac Adewale to look at all the issues surrounding the failure of the party in the governorship, presidential, National Assembly and State House of Assembly elections, and the committee spent about three months.
The committee took memoranda, interviewed people, and invited others to come and answer various allegations of anti-party activities levelled against them. After about three months and two weeks, they came up with their report.
After that, another committee called the Guideline Committee was constituted to work on the report of the Repositioning Committee led by Adewole. The Guideline Committee was headed by the former Speaker of Osun Assembly, Timothy Owoeye, with my humble self, Sunday Akere, as the secretary. We are an 11-member committee, and we took our time for two to three weeks to look at all the 31 recommendations of Prof Adewole’s Committee. We came up with a guideline which we submitted to the leadership of the party headed by Sooko Tajudeen Lawal to assist them in implementing an agenda for the repositioning of the party.
Just last week, the State Executive Committee of APC started a state-wide all-round tour of the local government areas, reassuring the members of the party not to lose focus, but to continue to be united and not relent. In August 2023, the leadership of the party reviewed the allegations against some members of the party. Some who were accused of anti-party were suspended while some others were expelled.
Those who were expelled are those who showed glaring association with the Peoples Democratic Party in the state by taking up positions either at the state, local government, or ward level. These are the ones that Governor Ademola Adeleke announced their names and 29 others. They were suspended for anti-party and misdeeds levelled against them.
The people still feel the APC in Osun State is too fragmented for it to challenge the PDP in the next election. Don’t you see it that way?
We are not fragmented; we have a rekindled party in the state under the chairmanship of Sooko Tajudeen Lawal and the leadership of Gboyega Oyetola. The issues are clear. Some are behaving as if they are not ready to subject themselves to the dictates of the party and they are those seeing themselves as a faction of the party. We don’t have any faction in Osun State APC, and I want everybody to know that by the time the State Working Committee rounds off the local government tour they started, people will know that there is only one single party in the state because the message we are passing across is that nobody should attend any factional meetings. Nobody should allow themselves to be used.
You said people of the state wanted the APC to return to power. Have you checked the scorecard of the incumbent governor, Ademola Adeleke? Has he not done well?
Within the 12 months of the PDP administration in the state, the people have seen the wide difference between the progressive party, the APC; and the conservative PDP, because the APC is the party that will make promises and stand by them.
Since the removal of the subsidy by President Bola Tinubu, there have been agitations everywhere. People want the government to give them palliative. The Federal Government listened to the yearnings of the people and gave money to each state to buy palliatives to relieve the suffering of the people.
You can see that Ondo and Ekiti states announced that they were giving each of their workers N35,000, Oyo State announced N25,000, and Ogun State, N35,000. It is only Osun State that, after much pressure, agreed to give the state workers N15,000.
n the area of transportation, other states were buying new buses but instead of the Osun State Government to do so, it preferred to refurbish the old Omoluabi school buses which the Aregbesola’s administration procured and were almost in a state of disrepair and put them on the road at the detriment of the people of the state. We all heard that one of the refurbished buses lost its brakes and it was God that saved the people there.
Aside from that, you will discover that what we have been witnessing here in Osun State is only audio and paper administration. The people cannot see their governor. A year after taking over, the governor has not deemed it fit to spend a night at the official government house lodge here in Osogbo.
Sadly, they are celebrating a year in office, and we cannot see the governor or the leadership of the administration come out to celebrate with their supporters in Osun State. The difference is so clear, and the people know that they have made a big mistake by voting for the PDP who are known for nothing but non-performance. What we have heard are only promises, pledges, and announcements of achievements that we cannot see.
But the administration listed several roads that Adeleke’s government was able to rehabilitate within a year. One of the road projects listed is the completion Osogbo/Ikirun corridor of the Osogbo/Kwara Boundary Road. Is that not correct?
We are all living in this state even before the advent of the PDP administration. At what stage or level was the Osogbo/Ikirun road? Who awarded the road? The road was awarded by the administration of Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola and by the time Adegboyega Oyetola was leaving office, the road was at 75 per cent completion.
What the PDP only did was paint the median, did a little work on the road, and claimed they were the ones that did the road. They only did 25 per cent of the road.
The administration has been saying it is workers-friendly too. Are some of the actions taken not pointing towards that?
The unfortunate thing is that even the workers are now gnashing their teeth in silence. How many worker-friendly things have they done? Have they given the wage award to the workers to alleviate the pains of the fuel subsidy removal? Are they giving any special palliative to the workers?
The only thing is that today, it is a regime where 75 per cent of the workers find it difficult to express their minds. They are suffering in silence, and they know that there is a clear difference between what they enjoyed during the progressive administration of the APC in the state compared to now under the PDP.
Are you saying they have not done well in any sector?
They have not done anything. What we have been witnessing here is maladministration. In the area of health, you cannot point to one thing they have done. They are only repeating what we have done. The O’Ambulance that we started, instead of continuing the good work, will rather change the people doing the work and rename the project.
