Minister of Communications, Adebayo Shittu, has explained how Governor Abiola Ajimobi used the state machinery to shut him out in the formation of the party’s executive in 2015.
Barr. Shittu in an interview with New Telegraph on Saturday, said he helped Ajimobi during his ordeal when he contested for governorship seat in 2017.
The Sabi-born said: “You will recall that in 2007 when Chief Rashidi Ladoja was the governor, I was at that time the Attorney General of the state. It was during that time that Ajimobi contested for the governorship.
“By the time he was contesting, because my boss then, Chief Ladoja, was not given a ticket to contest under the PDP, he gave Ajimobi all the support of his people because he announced publicly that everybody should vote for Ajimobi, and people massively voted for him. That was his first outing and he was voted for massively by the grace of Ladoja at that time.
“When he lost, Ladoja called me and said as an Attorney General, I should go and set up a legal team that would fight for Ajimobi who obviously had been robbed in the election. I set up a legal team, appointing Niyi Akintola (SAN) to handle the case.
“We paid N25m to assist Ajimobi in his case despite the fact that he had contested under the platform of ANPP and we were in PDP. For everyday that the case came up in court, I was always personally present to assist Niyi Akintola in the case.
“We moved on to Court of Appeal, but again unfortunately we lost that as well. All this made us to become more friendly because of the support and sacrifices I had given him.
“Thereafter we remained friends, till 2011 when Buhari established the Congress for Progressives Change (CPC). I became the governorship candidate of the CPC and Ajimobi was the governorship candidate for ACN.”
“We contested together and so I think that was the point of division, when things started going asunder. He won that election clearly, and I went to his house to congratulate him. The day I went, Governor Rauf Aregbesola was also there.”
Shittu said after the emergence of APC, the agreement was that all parties should contribute membership into the party executives but he (Ajimobi) shut him out.
“Then in 2015, we had established APC, and as I was coming from CPC, Ajimobi was coming from ACN, so we met in APC.
“The agreement pact that we had at the meeting then was that all parties were to contribute membership into the exco of APC in all the wards of the state but he used some kind of machinery to shut us out. The CPC didn’t have any input in the formations of the executive.”
