A Socio-Cultural Group, Oyo Patriotic Front (OPF) has commended the reported truce initiative between Governor Abiola Ajimobi and Senator Rashid Ladoja being brokered by the Central Council of Ibadan Indigenes (CCII).
The group however cautioned Governor Ajimobi not to get swayed by the truce with a resumption of his benevolence towards Senator Ladoja emphasising that based on previous experiences, the Accord Party leader will never reciprocate Ajimobi’s good gestures towards him but will continue his campaign of calumny to bring down Ajimobi’s government with lies untruths and negative comments warning that it is better to keep one’s avowed enemy at arms length.
The Group’s chairman, Chief Jare Adepoju urged Governor Ajimobi to consider the antecedents of Senator Ladoja, who has always repaid governor Ajimobi’s gestures with ignoble acts since 2011, noting that Senator Ladoja is on the path to political oblivion and does not possess much political currency. He is therefore totally undeserving of any consideration for a truce.
According to him, “the peace move by the CCII to resolve the entire imbroglio in Ibadan and Oyo State as a whole is commendable. However, we want to caution Governor Ajimobi not to get carried away. He should remember that his gestures in the past were repaid ungraciously. Through Governor Ajimobi’s magnanimity and benevolence, the Accord Party leader’s family member and loyalists were part of Ajimobi’s government between 2011 and 2013, they were part and parcel of the Executive council where major decisions affecting the state were taken and despite this, all the projects executed by the present administration were cynically viewed and condemned by the Accord party chieftain.”
He said that Senator Ladoja’s fruitless efforts and forlorn dreams to govern Oyo State again may have had an adverse effect on him, saying that the former governor’s recent utterances are bordering on frustration especially the statement on a private radio interview in Ibadan that the Oyo State Housing Corporation gave him a land and not Governor Ajimobi.
Adepoju explained that any sane mind will know that the Oyo State Housing Corporation cannot give land free of charge to to anybody without the consent of the governor, noting that as a former governor, he should know better, wondering how he managed to govern a state without a comprehensive appreciation of the statutory and executive powers of a governor.
He added that the former governor’s recent urge that the police should probe the state government over the violent attack on Olubadan should not be taken seriously but seen as a diversionary attempt from the real issues, stating that the general public knows that Ajimobi’s name is synonymous with peace while Ladoja’s name is synonymous with violence.
The Chairman regretted that the governor whose tenure was riddled with violence could be pointing accusing fingers at the government that has been preaching and practicing the sustainability of peace, stressing that the traces of the violence that trailed the primary elections of Accord Party prior to 2015 general elections is a pointer to his personality.
Adepoju appealed to the general public to consider the sustainability of peace in the state as a collective responsibility adding “the achievements of Ajimobi’s administration should be seen as our collective patrimony and guarded jealously.”
