Ogun APC and Issa-Onilu’s Barefaced Lies
Adekunle Akinlade
APC’s acting National Publicity Secretary, Lanre Issa-Onilu is a man without honour, writes Gbemi Atunrase
Mr. Lanre Issa-Onilu, the Acting Publicity Secretary of the APC, spoke recently on the controversy trailing the contentious primaries of the party in Ogun State and unfortunately, did a rather awful job for his paymasters. His very unintelligent narrative represented nothing but sheer lies designed to further confuse discerning members of the public on the poorly executed fraud that is being presented as fact in the state.
If I recall vividly, Issa-Onilu had not become the Publicity Secretary of the party, when the primaries took place. This is why his cheap but obviously paid for account of what transpired was shocking because it was obviously downloaded to him by those who designed and prosecuted the fraud they desperately seek to impose on Ogun State.
Even when some members of the National Working Committee (NWC) of the party sent to the state to deliver the fraud came out to raise the alarm on the assignment handed them and were consequently expelled for not playing ball, Issa-Onilu still lacked the decency to uphold the truth.
In fact, I have it on good authority that one of those behind this evil, a former governor of the state recently confided in the Managing Director of a major agency in the country that there was actually no primary but that they merely cornered the NWC members, induced them and wrote the result for them hence the announcement was done in Lagos. So, what nonsense is Issa-Onilu saying? Perhaps, he has been given his deserving share of the booty that has been flying around in hard currency and that has affected his reasoning.
For the umpteenth time, there were no gubernatorial primaries in Ogun State other than the one held on October 2, that produced Hon. Adekunle Akinlade as the governorship candidate of the APC. The attempt by Issa-Onilu to confuse these issues only belittles him at his level and exposes his lack of honour.
The guidelines of the party were clear on the roles of the state party executive and the NWC committee on the conduct of primaries. The claim of a court injunction restraining Ogun State executive committee from participating in the conduct of the primaries is a fabrication to defraud the people of the state.
Which court gave the injunction and when? Who are the parties in the case? If at all there was, did the national secretariat bring it to the attention of the state executive council of the party? Was the injunction given at a weekend or on the public holiday of October 1, because the national secretariat engaged the state executive of the party on the primaries all through the weekend, leading to the October 2 primary elections?
Where did the primaries that produced Dapo Abiodun hold? The primaries were to hold on October 1. When it did not hold, the state government extended the school holiday of October 1 by one day so that school premises that were the designated venues for the primaries would be available. The venues were used for the primaries on October 2 and the schools resumed on October 3. So, where did the Dapo Abiodun primaries hold?
Truth is that while the video footage of the October 2 primaries in all the 236 wards in the state had been put in public domain, the Dapo Abiodun primary remains only in the imagination of these fraudulent characters, who are only striving hard to annex the state and put in their stinking pockets.
Again, I ask, where did Dapo Abiodun cast his vote? Where did Chief Segun Osoba vote? It is instructive that when this question was put to Mr. Segun Adesegun, who claimed there were such primaries on a national television network programme, he could not even mention a venue, where their rather conjured primaries took place.
There are 236 wards in Ogun State and only 12 election committee members were sent in from Abuja. Did 12 panel members conduct primaries simultaneously in 236 wards? Did the panel assemble a local election committee as provided by the party guidelines without the knowledge and input of the governor and the state, local government and ward executives of the party?
Issa-Onilu claimed that Governor Ibikunle Amosun resorted to self-help and as such, the non-recognition of the October 2 primaries. That was the dumbest thing a person holding such office could utter. But the question to ask him is whether the declaration of result by the Chairman of panel in the same exercise in Lagos State different from what happened in Ogun State.
Besides, where and when did the one whose result was announced in a hotel room in Lagos hold? If the gubernatorial primaries were cancelled, because of the allegation made by Issa-Onilu, what was responsible for the tampering with the outcome of the National Assembly and State Assembly primaries conducted by the panel set up by the National Working Committee led by Col. Ali Ciroma?
Oshiomole removed four of the nine winners of the primaries and replaced them with candidates of Osoba and Abiodun. Was the election conducted by the NWC panel also rejected, because of self-help? The imbroglio over the primaries of Ogun State has brought to the fore the danger APC faces in the hands of Oshiomole and few members of the NWC like Issa-Onilu, who are in cahoots with him and doing very nasty job that is meant to lead the party to the Golgotha.
If they must know, the people of Ogun State are too enlightened and sophisticated to allow cheap and willing tools in the national secretariat like Oshiomhole and Issa-Onilu to hand over their state to some expansionist adventurers, who are in desperate search for additional territories for their insatiable economic exploitation and unbridled political misadventure.
That a man like Issa-Onilu, who struggled to be where he is today after being publicly humiliated at the party’s convention by Malam Bolaji Abdulai, a decent fellow, who genuinely won the seat before defecting with his boss to another party, would start a rather fragile career this way, then, we needn’t tell him that his future here is simply predictable. Men like him don’t go far.
Who wants to continue to raise a bunch of liars without scruples – a man who would cringe at the cheapest offer? If he finds it hard to exhibit integrity and the guts demanding of his job, there is no doubting the fact that the APC has made yet another wrong choice in the appointment of a spokesperson, just like it did with Oshiomhole, a man everyone now knows crystal clearly is working for the opposition.
–––Atunrase wrote from Isabo, Abeokuta, Ogun State
