On Tuesday, young APC supporters from Osun State held a public demonstration in Osogbo to demand that the party be restructured.
The demonstration is a reaction to the party’s electoral failure when Senator Ademola Adeleke, a candidate for the People’s Democratic Party, defeated Adegboyega Oyetola, the current governor and an APC candidate.
The teens claimed that Oyetola was to responsible for their own self-inflicted loss.
They claimed that the governor started criticizing Rauf Aregbesola, his predecessor and the current interior minister, and emphasized that Aregbesola’s supporters were not included.
Busayo Oluwaseun, one of the protesting youths’ leaders and a resident of Ward 10 Unit 8 in Boluwaduro LG in Osun State, suggested that an inclusive party executive structure from the ward level to the state level be formed within 90 days.
He said, “The July 16 governorship election in Osun has come and gone, but the aftermath will remain with us for a long time to come with prospect of its deleterious consequences for our party in the state and coming elections.
“Our party lost a governorship election we should have won. We practically surrendered the governorship of the state to a decimated, fractious and disoriented opposition party, the Peoples Democratic Party.
“The journey to this humiliating defeat began in 2018 with the unjust imposition of the candidate, Alhaji Gboyega Oyetola, from the wrong electoral zone, Osun Central when the people of Osun were expecting our party to field a candidate from Osun West.
“We had to leverage on the goodwill of the outgoing APC government, the charm and charisma of the then Governor Rauf Aregbesola and the relative strength of our party and members in the state, to be able to just manage to win the election.
“Once the new government that had just a thin veneer of legitimacy was inaugurated, it began a bizarre and ruinous process of delinking itself from the popular and well accepted immediate past administration and the dutiful party leaders and members that made its election possible. This is in gross and ominous violation of our fathers proverb that says a river that delinks from its source will soon dry up.
“The government divided the party into Ileri Oluwa and others. Government and party positions became the exclusive right of Ileri Oluwa partisans while other members were excluded. This was even taken further with the arrest and prosecution of party members who do not belong to the Ileri Oluwa caucus.
“To make matters worse, the government and its cabinet members began an open attack on the person of Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola. The most visible achievement of the government without any doubt was the undoing of the cardinal programmes of his administration in education, political restructuring and others. While some programmes were reversed, others were simply stopped. The excuse then was that the people wanted it that way.”
The protesters called for the dissolution of the party structures from the ward to the state level and demanded the setting up of an independent caretaker committee to oversee the restructuring of the party
“In order to address this emergent clear and present danger, we unequivocally make the following demands:
“The dissolution of all party structures from the ward to the state level.
“The setting up of an independent caretaker committee to oversee the restructuring of the party and turn it into an election winning machine again.
“Composition of an all-inclusive party executive structures from wards to state level within 90 days; and
“The redistribution of the state and federal legislative tickets in an all inclusive manner to reflect true membership structure and tendencies.
“This in our humble opinion is the way forward from the logjam we found ourselves in the APC and unless we urgently take these steps, we stand the grave risk of suffering worse consequences in the coming elections,” he said.
