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The social media has been flooded in last 24 hours with a Press Statement made by the failed APC Candidate for House Assembly Akoko South West Constituency 1 in the last House of Assembly Election blaming everyone except himself for his colossal failure in that election.
Ordinarily it is not in my character to respond to such jaundiced and watery innuendos coming from a deranged mind but for the fact that he made mentioned of our highly respected and revered monarch Oba(Dr) Yusuf Adeleye,OON the Olubaka of Oka in his so called press release,I am left with no other choice than to make the following clarifications.
It is not only malicious but a wicked lie from the pit of hell that he claimed a meeting was held at the palace of Olubaka where a decision was taken not to vote for him.This is not only a misrepresentation of facts but a mischievous lie.
If any meeting of such took place I,as the Representative of Oka People and the Akogun of Oka Land will be in the know.
No meeting of such was held at Olubaka palace,our Monarch do not entertain such in his palace,anyone can go and find out the truth.
For dragging the exalted stool of Olubaka into this there will definitely be dire consequences.
Mr Gbogi Emmanuel who got the ticket of The All Progressives Congress with the help of the ‘Tax Collector’ the State Chairman of APC Mr Adetimehin and some self acclaimed leaders who lost woefully in their polling units and wards in the election should have the fear of God and admit his failure in good faith.
In the so called press release Gbogi cast aspersions on our Monarch and some Leaders of the Party in Oka including myself,he alleged that he lost because he is from Iwaro and that we in Oke Oka did not vote for him.
In his press release he addressed himself as Honourable and I laughed,I laughed because that title is earned and not just an appellation but in this clime any jester that has little change to paste posters refers to himself as honourrable,what a shallow minded character.
He claimed he is pleading for people that were purportedly suspended to be pardoned.
A far as I’m concerned he is just playing to the Gallery.
In the first instance there was no suspension at all because APC has a constitution,I doubt if he has ever laid his hand on the constitution and reprimanding members for any offense has a procedure and this is explicitly stated in our Constitution and in this case that procedure was not followed.As a matter of fact the Chairman of the Party in the Local Government Elder Seinde Mise has denied he was not consulted and was not a party to the shenanigans these group of jesters have done.When they discovered they have goofed they hurriedly called a meeting at the instance of Mr Adetimehin at the State Party Secretariat where they tried to perfect what they have earlier done at the Local Government level and in that meeting nobody from my Ward (Ward 4 Agba Oka)was in attendance because we have a copy of the names of attendees of the meeting.Elder Mise was summoned from Lagos and himself and Rt.Hon.Olabimtan whose signatures were on that document has told people that spoke with them that nobody was suspended in my ward.The person that was given the letter to submit to Adetimehin colluded with one or two people with the supervision of Adetimehin typed another list and included my name and that of Hon.Agbede(Ajulu)also from my ward and that was the one they have been circulating in the media.
Adetimehin in a statement made available a couple of days ago claimed it is a family affair and as such it will be treated so, but if it is a family affair why is he putting it in the public space on daily basis,of course there is motive behind this and it’s a ploy to shut us out of the forthcoming Local Government Election and next Year Gubernatorial Elections where he intends to write names of Councillors and delegates but this time around he will be shocked.
Adetimehin should know better than this.It’s not going to be business as usual.
Oka People are one of the most Educated,intelligent and Sophisticated People in Ondo State even though most of us are farmers but we are not illiterates.
Oka is one and whoever is bringing this divisive narrative up claiming Oke Oka and Iwaro are different will meet their Waterloo very soon.
It takes more than having a strong party to win elections in Oka and this has been demonstrated severally.
The APC
Candidate in that election is someone that is always drunk as early as 8am almost everyday and will start misbehaving talking thrash,of course such character will be rejected at the polls and that was exactly what happened.
APC remains the Party to beat in Oka any day provided we throw up a sellable candidate,at a time like this we ought to sit down and tell ourselves the truth and find a way forward instead of compiling lists of people that will be suspended.
The numbers of active politicians in Ondo State is less than 10% of the population,the remaining 90% are none politician but they are the one that vote and determine who wins elections and once a Party presents a liability as a candidate the result is obvious.
Oka will vote for you anyday if they believe you have what it takes to represent them.
In 2011,Hon.Debo Ologunagba,
the present National Publicity Secretary of PDP and Rt.Hon.Dare Emiola who happens to be one of my predecessors and the present Chairman House of Assembly Service Commission won elections into the House of Representatives and House of Assembly respectively because Oka people believed in their candidature that time and the two of them are not only from Iwaro part of Oka but are cousins but Gbogi will not know this because he not connected to the grassroot.
Mr Gbogi knows why he failed in the election he is just looking for an excuse to run some people down and this has been his style since he came back from the US.
I doubt if he and his co travelers and Godfather Mr Adetimehin really knows what is called Anti-Party.
The truth of the matter is that i never participated in his campaign and because the so called leader that draws the campaign list did not consult widely as expected and a lot of people were shut out of the preparations of the election.
I was called after they have concluded everything they did and I told them things are not done the way they are going about it.
Election is a process and not an event,if you want to win elections you have to do the needful and make sure you touch base correctly,but in this case they did not they stood their ground and I told them I will not be part of that because there is no me without my followers across the length and breath of the 8 Wards that made up Constituency 1 in Oka and they did this because of the anticipation of campaign funds that they already planned to pocket during the election unfortunately the New Naira Design policy of the Federal Government cut short their dreams.
I dedicated all my time,energy and resources to the campaign and mobillised my constituents for the success of our President-Elect Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu and as the Coordinator for Akoko South West LGA in the Tinubu/Shettima Grassroots Independent Campaign Council (ICC) and as well as the State Director for Amagalmated All Progressives Congress Support Group in Ondo our activities before the elections were well documented.
Another reason why I stayed away from the campaign for the House of Assembly in our Constituency was that on two occasions Gbogi assaulted me physically(he admitted this at one of the meetings held at the State level before the election)but on those two occasions I walked away from the scene before it escalated into a fracas ,there are living witness to these scenarios,of course I will be blamed if there were any casualties at the scenes of these incidents.
I walked away not because I am a coward but because the story will be twisted that I fought him because I did not get the ticket of the party.
I have moved on since and that’s the truth.
The story of that Primary Election will be for another day.
In 2019 when I emerged as the candidate of our Party there were 12 others Aspirants that took part in the primary none of them supported or attended our campaigns except one,about 7 of them decamped and got the tickets of the party they decamped to,the remaining 4 were lukewarm throughout the campaign and election period but I never allowed that to deterred and I never claimed they did Anti-Party.I won the election with a wide margin,I got over Ten thousand votes while the first runner up got around Three thousand votes.The Local Council Chairman Oloruntogbe did not step out of his house to mobilize or vote in that election and I lost his ward ,in fact I got the least votes from that ward at that time and I want to believe the phrase Anti-Party was not in their vocabulary then.
Gbogi is an unknown quantity in the family of APC until last year when he came out from correctional services in Colorado in the United States,he has never participated in any elections in our Constituency since the birth of APC in 2013.
He got the ticket on the order of Mr Adetimehin and some perennial failures in election in our local government after they shopped effortlessly to find someone that will replace me in the House of Assembly of which all responsible members of our Party has made up their mind that they are satisfied with my performance as their representative in the Ondo State House of Assembly and that the chance of APC retaining that seat in the House of Assembly is secured once I’m on the ballot but Adetimehin will not have any of that because according to him I’m too outspoken for his liking and he wants only people that will do his bidding at the hallowed chamber.
Mr Adetimehin who is supervising and compiling names of Party members to be suspended has been a failure in his Idanre Local Government since 2012.
In 2012 Akoko Southwest LGA was one of the 3 Local Governments ACN won in that year Gubernatorial Election and we made that happened, the records are there for people to see.
In 2019 ,the self acclaimed Engineer who never saw the four walls of any Nigerian University or Polytechnic failed woefully in the House of Assembly in Idanre State Constituency and the House of Representatives seat was won by SDP a relatively unknown party in Ondo State,this showed that Mr Tax Collector has been rejected in his domain long time ago.
Fast forward to 2023 ,sensing an imminent defeat again Mr Adetimehin quickly changed from his Isanlu/Jigbokin Ward in Idanre to Ofosu/Oniseere Ward which is rural area thinking he will be able to manipulate and rig elections there but he was defeated flatly.Today the only House of Representatives seat APC lost in the last election in Ondo State is the Federal Constituency of Mr Tax Collector and instead of him to be remorseful and find a way of bringing more people onboard to win future elections he is looking for who to suspend from the Party as if the Party is his family inheritance.
Anyone can go to Idanre to and find out why APC continues to lose elections in that area you will told Adetimehin is the problem.
Adetimehin knows me too well and he knows I know him very well too as fate brought us together in the administration of Chief Adebayo Adefarati of blessed memory.
The Student Affairs Portfolio abnitio was under his purview was taken away from him and given to Late Dr Theo Adebowale of AAUA due to his incompetence and dictatorial tendencies.
I have served in various committees in the Progressive Family in Ondo State from the days of AD to AC ,ACN and now APC ,my records are out there in the public domain and I have benefited from the Party from being a Personal Assistant in the Office of the Governor 2001-2003,Education Secretary from October 2017 -September 2018 when I resigned to run for a seat in the House of Assembly in 2019 and I’m very grateful for my Party for giving me such opportunities but I will not fold my arms and allowed these charlatans to destroy what we have built over the years. Adetimehin has never won an election,he has always been seeking to be a Party Executive at the State level where its only affirmation that brought him to such offices and the reason for this is obvious.
He should go test his popularity and contest for the position of a councillor in his ward and experience what it means to win an election.
It is imperative that a critical examination of Party management in Ondo State be conducted to prevent individuals with questionable characters from assuming the position of party chairman.
It is a fact that at the last Presidential Primary of our great party APC in Abuja last year June Mr Adetimehin did not work for our President-Elect Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu,we have this fact with verified evidences as he took some of Ondo State National Delegates to one of the Suburbs in Abuja to his preferred Presidential Aspirant who he allegedly got a huge sum of money from,that has been his style,it took the intervention of Hon.Sunday Abegunde Abena Ondo former SSG and some loyal party leaders in Ondo State to rescue those delegates from him and brought them back to Asiwaju fold and here is the man that want to suspend party leaders from the party,it’s so unfortunate.
A Leopard can never change his skin and I want to say unequivocally that the days of sitting down in one corner and change delegates lists are over.Someone that supposed to bury his head in shame and seek for forgiveness is shouting Anti-Party as if he knows the meaning of that phrase.
My words of advice to Mr Tax Collector is to go and get a copy of Chinua Achebe book -Things Fall Apart and read and note the Character of Okonkwo who was a strong man but at the same time a coward,Okonkwo greatest undoing was to have a hand in the death of Ikemefuna.
The day of reckoning is close by and soon very soon all that’s in the dark will come to light.
‘Keregbe to fo dehin lehin odo’
I rest my case for now.
Chief Olugbenga Omole
The Akogun of Oka Land.
19th May,2023.