•Senator: I didn’t belittle Asiwaju
The Action Group (AG) of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Ekiti State has berated Senator Gbenga Aluko for allegedly casting aspersions on the political relevance of the party’s National Leader and former Lagos State governor Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu.
The group described Asiwaju Tinubu as the unshakable pillar of the party in the Southwest and across the country.
In a speech he made while pleading to be “assimilated” into APC in Ekiti State, Aluko, who represented Ekiti South between 1999 and 2003, said, among other things, that Asiwaju Tinubu was politically tired and was almost booted out of APC.
Reacting to Aluko’s statement, APC’s Action Group, through its spokesperson, Segun Dipe, noted that it was unfortunate that the senator, who wanted to be assimilated into the party, had a divisive mindset against its National Leader.
The statement said: “Imagine someone still begging to join our party from the dying Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) saying at our party secretariat, of all places, that those party members going to Osogbo and Bourdillion would soon regret doing so. That the man at Bourdillion was already tired and would soon be sent away from the party!
“Making such a disparaging statement as he did about the party he aspires to join and its National Leader is quite unfortunate, a misadventure, mischievous and a misnomer. We are not in PDP, where there is no respect for leaders and elders.”
APC’s Action Group said Aluko should remind himself that the recent achievement of Asiwaju Tinubu will forever remain fresh in the memory of every Nigerian and should not have warranted such disparagement from him or anyone else.
It said: “Aluko wants to come and eat from a cooked meal. Yet, without Asiwaju Tinubu putting all his political arsenals to use, there would not be an APC for him to contemplate being assimilated into today. We know Aluko’s antecedent of moonlighting and political prostitution. We know he loves to identify himself with other people’s successes.”
The statement said Asiwaju Tinubu was not just any other politician who could be equated to another politician in the PDP, where Aluko wanted to leave for the progressives.
The group said: “For him to have made such a disparaging statement regarding our National Leader, therefore, simply means he does not recognise our structure and cannot fit into our party.
“We are not surprised though that Aluko is making such divisive statements as we saw him doing. Or, is he not the same Aluko who was quoted at the Senate to have said that he was not a Yoruba senator and was not in support of any Yoruba agenda? Why then should we expect such a person to respect our culture and appreciate our values?”
APC’s Action Group reminded the senator of a Yoruba adage that says: ‘A child who boasted that he would have his lunch with the head of the pigeon on attaining maturity would be debarred from growing up by the same pigeon.’
“Now, we know why Aluko became a pariah in his PDP. He was once accused of name-dropping by his own blood brother and he was always making unguarded statements, throwing missiles from within. We don’t want such a person in our party.”
The group urged Aluko to publicly apologise to Asiwaju Tinubu, whether or not he would eventually joins the party.
Failure to do so, the group said, would make Aluko to incur the wrath of the party and jeopardise his future political ambition, which would keep him running from pillar to post.
The statement added: “Gbenga Aluko started with faulty steps and wobbly legs. He is a wingless bird with perfidious ambition. If he is this arrogant, when naked and running to our party, we wonder what would become of him when eventually he is well-clothed by us. Hence, his journey from PDP to APC has ended just as it began.”
But Aluko said he was shocked to have been misquoted.
The politician said he made what he called an honest remark on the resolution of the disagreements within the party in Ekiti State.
He insisted that he respected Asiwaju Tinubu well, adding that he would not say or do anything to disrespect him.
