The Youth Wing of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Osun State yesterday urged President Muhammadu Buhari to caution the Minister of Interior, Rauf Aregbesola, over his anti-party activity aimed at grounding the party.
Osun APC said the minister had become a liability and a political virus to the party, as seen in his inward and outward disposition.
Addressing a news conference at the APC secretariat in Osogbo, the youth leader, Mr. Goke Akinwemimo, said the former governor was on a vendetta move to destroy the party in Osun on account of ego tripping and self aggrandisement.
He said the conduct and attitude of Aregbesola was becoming worrisome, retrogressive and least expected from a serving minister and a former governor, who had risen to prominence with the support of the party structure.
The youth wing alluded to the clandestine approach of Aregbesola to mobilising financial and human resources, including security agents under the supervision of his ministry to harass and oppress the teeming members in a bid to aid the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the state, as manifested in the outcome of the recently-conducted governorship election.
It expressed displeasure at the inhuman dispositions of the former governor not only to kill the structures of the party, but also to relegate its members as seen in his anti-party conduct and the support given to opposition parties, particularly the governorship candidate of the PDP, Senator Ademola Adeleke, to emerge victorious at the recent election.
“Aregbesola declared war on our presidential candidate, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, in Ijebu-Jesa in one of his public outings. At that outing, he publicly declared his mission to strategise the political fall of Asiwaju Tinubu. May Allah reject his evil wish.”
The Interior minister has said APC might be doomed for more defeat ”because they have not learnt from their mistake that cost them the 2022 governorship election.”
A statement through his media aide, Sola Fasure, said: “The youth are misguided. For close to four years, the refrain of their sponsors was that Aregbesola was no longer relevant in the APC and Osun politics.
”He was subjected to scurrilous attacks, including armed invasion on his campaign office on two occasions.
“Buoyed by the false notion of their superiority, they practised ruinous exclusivity and shunned any call for reconciliation and inclusion of other members of the party. Their reaction has shown they have not learnt any lesson and they may be doomed to a concatenation of more defeats.”