…says the party is dead totally
Governor of Osun State, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola, has on Tuesday stated that the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has lost its relevance in the South-Western part of Nigeria with the turning into shreds of the party’s membership card by the former President, Olusegun Obasanjo who brought the party to the region.
This was even as the Governor warned the opposition party against importing into the state hoodlums and mercenaries for the purpose of unleashing mayhem during the coming Osun West Senatorial by-election.
Aregbesola stated these when the campaign train led by him to solicit votes for Senator Mudashir Husain moved to Ikire, in Irewole Local Government Area of the state.
Aregbesola who had earlier paid a courtesy call on Akire of Ikire, Oba Olatunde Falabi, said the emergence of the All Progressives Congress at the centre has been the end of PDP’s reign in the country.
He said the PDP’s era has gone in Nigeria particularly in the South-west as many of the party’s founding fathers have dumped the party.
Aregbesola held that the PDP has become a dead party in Nigeria, saying whoever returns to the party now could only meet vanity.
The Governor described the move to revive the PDP through the forthcoming bye-election as an exercise in futility, saying the former President who brought PDP to the South-west openly before members of the part tore his membership card of the PDP into shreds.
According to him, ”Why will any sensible politician at this time will want to associate with a party that is not only drowning but dead in the South-West.
“It will be an exercise in futility for anybody to now want to wake up a dead horse through the July 8 Osun West Senatorial bye election when founding fathers of the party have not only deserted the party but wouldn’t want associate with it.
“We are all living witnesses to how the former President openly at his ward declared that the the PDP has gone beyond redemption, hence his declaration of the obituary of the party with symbolic trashing of his membership card “, he stressed.
He also took the opportunity of the campaign to warn troublemakers especially the opposition parties who are nursing the ambition of bringing-in militants to unleash mayhem should people resist their underhand tendencies during the July 8 bye election.
Aregbesola however warned suspected militants who PDP might have engaged to turn down the offer as the state in collaboration with security agencies will do everything possible to ensure that Osun remains peaceful as ever.
He said, “Why will anybody think that the people of Osun who stood firm even in the face of provocation during the last general election under the supervision of the PDP led government then, would now waver from such determination?
“It is on record that despite the intimidation by the then security apparatus who invaded the state with weird looking officers who had strange looking dogs still could not deter our people from associating with our good governance, why will they be deterred by militants?
“We use this medium to warn any militant who the opposition had contracted to think twice before coming to Osun as government is ever ready to use every lawful means at its disposal to smoke them out of the state,” the Governor told the gathering.
