It was a fight long expected.
However, no one expected the
clash of egos between the
Governor Ibikunle Amosun and
Aremo Segun Osoba led factions
of the party to manifest so early
in the life of the newly registered
All Progressives Congress, APC.

The absence of Osoba, all three
senators and majority of the
members of the House of
Representatives on the APC ticket
at the formal inauguration of the
new party recently in Abeokuta,
was a major blow to the unity of
the newly emerged party.

While Amosun and many of his
supporters sang and danced
away at the Alake Palace ground
on that day, Osoba and many of
his followers including all three
senators it was learnt watched
the proceedings on television.
They were definitely not
bemused.

They couldn’t have. Just three
years ago they were the ones
that invited Governor Amosun
into the Action Congress of
Nigeria, ACN, the party that is the
mainstay of the APC in Ogun
State. Amosun before then was
in the defunct All Nigeria Peoples
Party, ANPP and was the main
tree and he like Osoba and
others knew that a tree could not
make the forest they needed to
crowd out the Peoples
Democratic Party, PDP.

Amosun’s entry into the ACN was,
however, laced with crisis as he
was accepted almost alone and
all other prominent associates
who had political ambitions for
the Senate and the House of
Representatives were dropped.
While he was easily crowned as
the ACN gubernatorial candidate,
his associates were dropped.
Even his deputy, was imposed on
him. It was the humble pie that
Amosun took, but those who
know him, knew that he was
bound to take his pound of flesh.

Genesis of the squabble
The internal wrangling rocking
the party began shortly after it
was clear that Amosun, who was
a member of the defunct All
Nigeria Peoples Party, ANPP,
was going to be hand-picked as
Ogun ACN governorship ahead of
the 2011 election.
In fact, his choice as the party’s
standard bearer was greeted
with violence as the party
secretariat located along Abiola
Way in Abeokuta was destroyed.
Some leaders of the party had to
run for a cover as supporters of
other aspirants felt cheated by
the arrangement

The trouble became bigger when
the governor, reportedly, arm-
twisted the party leaders in the
nomination of his commissioners
when he jettisoned the party’s
list.

Osoba and Amosun

Over time, the crisis seemed to
have been bottled until the issue
of nomination of local
government chairmen,
which also went in favour of the
governor and thus
polarised the party the more.
Then, the party was
sharply divided into two: the ACN
and Senator Ibikunle Amosun,
SIA.

For the council polls, the party’s
nominees were jettisoned for
SIA’s candidate by the State
Independent Electoral
Commission, which led to
defection of many aggrieved
members to other parties
including the Preoples
Democratic Party, PDP and Labour
Party.
It was further gathered that,
what angered SIA camp against
the other party believed to be
loyal to Osoba was that his camp
was stripped almost naked in the
nomination of lawmakers
especially at the Federal level.
The Osoba camp produced all the
nine Federal lawmakers but one
was defeated at the election by
PPN candidate from Imeko.

Also, SIA was said to have felt
cheated and humiliated with the
paltry slots offered him at the
state House of Assembly as his
camp was given 10 out of the 26
seats and Osoba camp also got
the speaker’s seat. The Assembly
has six opposition members
leaving 20 seats for the ACN.
Apparently irked by the
arrangement, the SIA camp hit
back at the Osoba camp.
He swapped the position of
deputy speaker which had been
given to a female lawmaker from
Ifo 11, Khadihat Adele Oladipo, to
his loyalist, Tola Banjo from
Ijebu-Ode constituency.
Ever since, relations between
SIA and other federal lawmakers
can be likened to that of cat and
mouse.

Effects and threats
To show their grievances, all the
Federal lawmakers stayed away
from the launch of APC in Ogun
State.
Dramatically, all of
them reportedly gathered in the
Lagos home of their leader
where they watched the
programme on the state-owned
television.
Interestingly, 24 hours after the
launch of the party, the posters
of another governorship
aspirant, believed to have been
sponsored by the Osoba
camp, flooded major places in
the state capital.
The speculation that Amosun
might have been dumped by the
party played itself out as the
posters of Fola Adeola, former
running mate of ACN
Presidential candidate in the
2011 election; Nuhu Ribadu, was
sighted at strategic places in the
state capital.
But, dramatically, some people
believed to be loyalists of
Amosun swiftly removed all the
posters, which they considered
as an affront against the sitting
governor.

With this development, a seed of
destruction seems to have been
sowed right from the birth of the
new party in Ogun State
following the
several endorsements of
Governor Amosun for second
term in office.

Although, it is at the stage of
silent war but political observers
liken the situation to keeping a
keg of gun powder within the
house which only needs a little
spark to explode

They also maintained that “the
only lesson that has been learnt
from history is that man does not
learn from history”. One would
have expected that APC would
have learnt from the bitter lesson
of the PDP in the state whose
demise started as an internal
wrangling before it blossomed
into a deadly canker worm that
spelt doom for the then ruling
party in the state.

According to some political
watchers in the state, Amosun
has demonstrated amiable
virtues such as gentility
and understanding before he
later became power drunk.

They further said that no matter
the amount of power he
possessed he could not afford to
dismantle the structure that
brought him to power. “It is
interesting to have powers like a
lion but it is tyrannical to use it
like a lion”, they concluded.

The other camp is said to be
suffering from ego which,
according to political watchers
has made it difficult for them to
respect their governor who is
also their leader.

Amosun, according to them,
boosted their chances in the last
general election as some of them
were little known in the state.
They take the issue of the
candidates that defeated ex-
Speaker of the House of
Representatives, Dimeji
Bankole and daughter of former
President Olusegun Obasanjo,
Iyabo, as part of a case study.
However, the crisis is taking
toll on the party’s chances ahead
of the 2015 general election. It
may suffer incalculable losses at
the polls if it did resolve the
matter.
Reacting to Amosun’s style of
governance by Amosun, Senator
Gbenga Kaka who represents
Ogun East said the party was
under threat.
He explained the nature of the
threat as “threat of none
inclusiveness. In fact, some
members of ACN are already
warming up to leave for the
Labour Party (LP). They are
planning to abandon the party
because the administration in
the state is running a non-
inclusive administration and they
are disenchanted with it.”
Also speaking on the
crisis, a member of House of
Representatives, representing
Ifo-Ewekoro Federal
Constituency, Adekunle
Adeyemi has condemned the
purported endorsement of
Governor Amosun by a faction of
the party, describing it as a
nullity.
He insisted that the endorsement
by former local government
chairmen of the defunct ACN in
the state must be repeated with
the approval of Chief Osoba,
whom he described as a national
leader of the party.
He said: “Now that we are in APC,
I think the endorsement has to
be done again and any
endorsement done without the
approval of our leader, Chief
Segue Osoba is not an
endorsement.
Though the issue of
endorsement is not in our
constitution, it is no crime for
anybody to be ambitious. There
is freedom of ambition and
freedom of speech”.

http:// www.vanguardngr.
com/2013/08/ ogun-apc-its-fig
ht-to-finish/

ewo ni , ni ile yoruba, lati se .

There's no party without its own internal wrangling. But ACN/APC has a good and timeless way of overcoming any discord within their party ranks. This is one thing other parties should emulate from them. No matter their differences they still cum together on the long run because the interest of the party is greater than the ambition of any individual unlike some other parties e.g PDP(armed robber party)
*even blood brothers do fight talkless of a collection of people from different background but the most important thing is reconciliation and moving forward!

Conspiracy theorist.

Some wars are only in some peoples mind, they are sniffing around to detect it,either real or imaginary to say "yes we said it"

APC IS DEAD ON ARRIVAL..


if you like keep believeing call me deluded, but you think buhari won't want to run?, and you know the election is GEj's if Buhari runs.. right now PDP wants Buhari to run as bad aspossible.. and if he does not run, APC can kiss the Party unity goodbye

#holding jaw wit 1 hand while I watch d drama as it unfolds at d state level n 1dering hw it'll b at d center bt it's 2 early 2 call okupe a prophet#

I hate imposition. Amosun should be allowed to choose the best hands he can work with as a team. I can't believe khadijat almost became a deputy speaker...chai.

.