Mrs Florence Ajimobi, wife of the immediate past governor of Oyo State, late Sen. Abiola Ajimobi, has said the All Progressives Congress (APC) lost the governorship election in the state due to disunity among leaders and members.
Mrs Ajimobi stated this while featuring on ‘South West Political Circuit,’ an interview programme on Ibadan-based Fresh 105.9FM at the weekend.
The former first lady disclosed that she made spirited efforts to bring all the feuding groups and individuals together, but her efforts did not yield any result.
Upon realising that it was impossible for APC to win the election while divided, Mrs Ajimobi said she invited all the major actors to a roundtable and appealed to them to see the need to close ranks so they could go into the election as a united party.
According to her, she found out that some of them have deep-seated bitterness that can not be easily healed. The former first lady explained that some of them have personal grudges against one another which could not be easily sorted, adding that some took hard stance and were not willing to shift ground on some issues.
“Disunity made us lose. We tried our best. A house that is divided against itself can not stand. Broom, which is the sign of our party, symbolises unity. It is not scattered but our party here was. We were not together.
“Right from inception I did not see us winning. I’m spiritual. I see what other people may not see.
“Before the election, I brought all the stakeholders together to appeal to them and emphasised the need to bury the hatchet. They respected me being the wife of their leader but some of the issues had become so personal,” she said.
The party’s governorship candidate, Sen. Teslim Folarin lost to Governor Seyi Makinde of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the election.
Makinde polled 573,756 votes while Folarin had 256,685 votes to come second.
But APC won the three senatorial seats and nine out of 14 House of Representatives seats while PDP won remaining five.
