The
senator representing Oyo South Senatorial district in the National
Assembly, Mr Femi Lanlehin of the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), has
declared that no governor will be given a second term in office in the
state, wondering who endorsed Governor Abiola Ajimobi for a second term.
But the media adviser to Governor Ajimobi, Dr Festus Adedayo, said it would be better to ignore the statement credited to Senator Lanlehin, adding that no true party member would go against his party’s wish.
Lanlehin, who spoke in an exclusive interview with Sunday Tribune, was reacting to a question about the recent reported endorsement of Governor Ajimobi at a public event held at Mapo Hall, Ibadan, and the response of the governor that he would love to be in the saddle for eight years.
“Who endorsed him? Everybody has a wish, but who endorsed him for a second term? There are so many endorsements all over the place, more so when he has the reins of power and the money.
“Tell me the governor that has not been endorsed for a second term from the days of yore. All the governors have been endorsed by their parties; the case of Oyo State is more peculiar and you must carry everybody along. If you think you are so smart, the people, at the appropriate time, will tell you that you are not. And who endorses who? In Oyo State, it is only one term per governor. For you to change that, you must be exceptionally kind to the people. Whether or not he has been kind to the people, you can go and find out what the people are saying in town,” he said.
According to Dr Adedayo: “We are sure Senator Lanlehin was misquoted, as no faithful ACN-APC party man would pour such vitriol on the representative of his party to whom even non-party men are giving kudos for having gallantly hoisted the party’s flag in the last two years or thereabout.
“But in the unimaginable circumstance that he was not misquoted, we want to put his vitriol in a proper perspective. Senator Lanlehin was special adviser to former governor of Lagos State, Senator Bola Tinubu and an Alliance for Democracy member. He fled the AD for the PDP and took flight again for the ACN where he contested for Oyo governorship with Senator Ajimobi in 2011. As the Yoruba would say in their evergreen aphorism, one’s enemy could never be considered to have hunted a massive game; it will always be one lean grasscutter! We could never have expected him to say otherwise about his 2011 gubernatorial nemesis.
“Since no true party man would say all those things attributed to Senator Lanlehin, and since the ACN as a party endorsed Governor Ajimobi, deductive logic gives us the latitude to wonder whether Lanlehin is still in the ACN-APC or, as usual, he is about to take his well-known flight and, hence, the need to destroy the party before his departure.”
culled from Nigerian Tribune.
