Aregbesola: We’re Long Distance Runners, We’ll Be Standing When Fair Weathers Leave

•Launches APC Omoluabi caucus, restates commitment to progressivism

Yinka Kolawole in Osogbo

In a somewhat cryptic message, the immediate past Minister of Interior, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola, yesterday, reaffirmed his place in the hierarchy of the All Progressives Congress (APC), saying, he and his people were “no sprinters, but long-distance runners and we will still be standing when all the fair-weathers have gone.”

Aregbesola, who restated his commitment to progressive ideals and the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Osun State noted that political parties were an amalgamation of different interests and tendencies.

In a statement by his spokesman Sola Fasure, Aregbesola renewed his commitment to the party during the launch of Omoluabi Caucus of the All Progressives Congress in Ilesa.

Describing the Omoluabi Caucus as one of the many caucuses in the state, the former two-term governor of Osun, noted that the caucus was not a faction of the party, but a union of like-minds in the state.

“The Omoluabi Tendency is a caucus within the All Progressives Congress (APC); actually one of the caucuses in the state. We are not a faction. We are the genuine foundation members of the party and we have no intention of abandoning the ship of the party as it navigates the most turbulent waters. We are no sprinters, but long-distance runners and we will still be standing when all the fair-weathers have gone.

“A political party is actually an agglomeration of interests and tendencies. Reading well from the United States, where we borrowed the Presidential System, we can see that the Republican Party is made up of big businesses, nationalists, religious right and others. The Democratic Party, on the other hand, is composed of welfarists, labour unions, ethnic and sexual minorities and others.

“They are together in the party because their interests are broadly similar and they believe the party is the right vehicle for them to realise their goals. Sometimes they compete and clash, but for most part, they cooperate and form strong bond to give their party the victory in every election cycle. The party loses anytime this bond is broken,” Aregbesola stated.

According tohim, the launch of the Omoluabi Caucus was to renew their path in progressive politics as inherited from Chief Obafemi Awolowo, Chief Bola Ige, amongst other progressives, who epitomised the Omoluabi ethos, noting that the loss of the party in the state could be traced to the departure from these progressive ideals, but revealing that it would bounce back to its winning ways.

“What we have come to do here today is to renew our commitment to the path of progressive ideology and politics as inherited from our great past heroes, beginning from Chief Obafemi Awolowo, Chief Michael Adekunle Ajasin, Chief Abraham Adesanya, Chief Bola Ige and others in the pantheon of progressive politics too numerous to mention.

“Emerging from the ashes of the near annihilation of our party in the governorship election of 2022 and the general election earlier this year, we should rise up and renew our strength and reclaim our place in the political firmament in Osun.

“We have been at this juncture before, after the 2003 election in which our party lost the stakes and was at its nadir in the state. At that point, like-minded progressives under the banner of Oranmiyan emerged to begin a movement that mobilised our members and the people of the state into a veritable electoral machine that won the 2007 governorship election which ushered an epoch-making two term administration in the state and handed over to a successor from our party,” he said.

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