A faction loyal to Interior Minister Rauf Aregbesola has been charged by the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Osun with organising a violent protest in the state.
The APC claimed in a statement released on Monday by Kola Olabisi, the media adviser to the state’s APC chairman, Prince Gboyega Famoodun, that the demonstrators operating under The Osun Progressives’ banner had come up with a plan to incite a significant disruption in Osun.
It was also stated that Famoodun was the target of the protest.
The APC pointed out that a TOP leader from the Osun West Senatorial District had been tasked with organising TOP members across the state as well as some PDP members to organise rallies against the state executive committee.
Aregbesola, a former governor of the state and his successor, Gboyega Oyetola, had been at loggerhead for about three years.
The minister refused to support the governor’s bid for re-election and instead anointed a former Secretary to the State Government, Moshood Adeoti, as his preferred candidate during the APC governorship primary held in January and won by Oyetola.
He, however, deleted the post a few minutes later.
The statement read: “Sequel to the recent conduct of the governorship election in Osun State, an incontrovertible intelligence report has shown that the leadership of a bellicose and belligerent tendency under the state chapter of the All Progressives Congress (APC), self-styled The Osun Progressives (TOP), has fine-tuned, funded and concluded a skilfully orchestrated sinister plan to promote a large-scale disturbance in the political firmament of the state.
“It was learnt that a leader of TOP from the West Senatorial District of the state has been saddled with the responsibility of mobilizing the members of the group across the state and some members of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) with a view to sponsoring series of protests against the state leadership of the APC under the chairmanship of Prince Gboyega Famodun, across the states and at the APC Headquarters in Abuja.
“Another targeted intention of the inglorious TOP handlers is to create series of violent protests across the state as a prelude or precondition for the creation of a state of emergency in the state in order to create a false impression that peace has eluded the perpetually peaceful state under the administration of Governor Oyetola.
“The aim of seeking for the hands of some PDP members in the planned protests in both Osun State and Abuja, according to the intelligence, is to create a false impression that TOP members are more in number than what they actually are.”
