The political
tension in Ogun State has reached its boiling point, and leaders of the ruling
party of the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) are doing everything possible not
to let it degenerated into a disaster.
The cause of the
problem is the coming local government election which is due to hold next month.
According to what
we hjeard, the two major camps in the ACN, the Amosun group and Osoba's group
are now at daggers drawn, chasing each other with guns and dangerous weapons
across the state over the candidates that will be fielded in all the 20 local governments
in the state.
Governor Amosun is
insisting that as the chief executive officer of the state, he should be the
one that will select all the candidates for the election. But this did not go
down well with the Osoba group who are now feeling sidelined inn the scheme of
things in the state.
It would be
recalled that Senator Amosun actually began his political journey under the
Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in 2003 where he won elections to represent Ogun
Central Senatorial district in the Senate. Amosun later decamped ton the All
Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP) to contest for governorship in 2007 which he lost.
In the last general elections, Amosun again decamped to the ACN at the last
minute and was given ticket of the party to contest the election. Though the
leader of ACN in Ogun state Chief Olusegun Osoba, a former governor of the
state reportedly grumbled then, about the choice of Amosun as the ACN
flagbearer, we learnt the National leader of the party, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu
made a case for Amosun and the party eventually won the election and Amosun
became governor.
But since he
became governor, Ibikunle Amosun has been accused severally of sidelining the
original 'owners' of the party in the schemes of things while favouring his
group that decamped with him from ANPP to ACN.
This coming local
government elections has however exposed Amosun's antics as he said all the
local governments candidates must be from his ANPP caucus.
Last week was hot
in the state capital when several people protested the choice of candidates
imposed on them by Gov. Amosun.
We learnt that in
Abeokuta South, a more popular aspirant popularly called Americo was dropped by
Amosun because he is in Osoba group, and replaced with one of the boys in his
camp. This reportedly led to a series of protest, but Amosun, according to
sources deployed policemen to quell the protest, while some of the protesters
also pulled out their guns. Our source said it was a real gun battle.
We gathered that
when Chief Segun Osoba protested, that Gov. Amosun cannot single handedly
select all the candidates he reportedly told the former governor that he is now
in charge of the state and could do as he wishes.
Therefore, Amosun
group which decamped from ANPP to ACN have taken over the candidates of ACN in
the coming elections while the original members of the ACN are now biting their
fingers.
But former
governor Segun Osoba last Thursday June 14, 2012 reported Gov. Amosun to
Asiwaju Tinubu and the National chairman of the party Chief Bisi Akande who
summoned Amosun to a meeting at the Ikeja, Lagos home of Tinubu on Friday, June
15, 2012.
We learnt those
invited to be at the meeting included all the National Assembly members from
the state as well as a few political leaders.
We were however
not able to get the resolution of the meeting as at the time of writing this
report.
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