By Dapo Falade
The leadership crises within the Lagos State chapter of the All Progressives Congress (APC) have taken a turn for the worse, as the National Leader of the party, Senator Bola Tinubu, has dissolved all political groups within the party’s fold in the state.
The latest development was seen as the continuation of a perceive cold war between Tinubu and his once-upon-a-time associate and Minister of Interior, Rauf Aregbesola.
The decision of the former Lagos State governor was announced at the meeting of the Governor’s Advisory Council (GAC) held at his Bourdillon, Lagos residence, Tuesday afternoon.
The Justice Forum and Mandate Groups, the two major political blocs within the party in the state, were mostly affected by the dissolution.
The GAC warned that any member of the party that flouted the order would be heavily sanctioned.
Aregbesola was accused of launching some political groups in the state without the knowledge of Tinubu, just as insinuations were rife that the former governor of Osun State was nursing an ambition to contest the 2023 presidential election.
It was further gathered that the presidential ambition of the serving minister may have pitted him against his former boss, who has been widely reported to be interested in the presidency in 2023.
The Mandate Group, made up of Tinubu’s loyalists, was recently relaunched by former Governor Aregbesola, but it was said that Tinubu was kept in the dark about the relaunch.
However, in a swift reaction, the national leader of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Senator Bola Tinubu, declared as untrue the report that he had issues with the Minister of Interior, Mr Rauf Aregbesola.
He made the clarification on Tuesday in a statement issued by his media aide, Tunde Rahman, declaring that there was no rift between him and the immediate past governor of Osun State.
There were reports earlier in the day the former Lagos State governor disbanded some groups within the state chapter of the APC to get back at Aregbesola who was said to be nursing a presidential ambition in 2023.
He described the report as fake, noting that the decision of the Governor’s Advisory Council (GAC’s) was an appropriate and candid resolution to promote discipline and cohesion within Lagos APC.
“Today, the Governor’s Advisory Council, the highest decision-making body within the APC in Lagos State, passed a resolution calling for the disbandment of all factional groups within the party.
“This was to promote discipline, harmony, cohesion and engender party supremacy. The APC is one united political family in Lagos.
“This is a figment of the imagination of the news organisation that authored the report. Senator Tinubu remains Aregbesola’s leader. The former governor of Osun State has been unswervingly and wholly committed to the progressive ideology of the Tinubu political family.
“There is no war, cold or hot, between them. There has never been and there will never be. Senator Tinubu believes in him and he believes in the APC leader.
“Our political family remains strong. And we are staying focused in our commitment to building and maintaining a cohesive political party.
“The GAC is a very strong body within the APC leadership structure in Lagos. Its resolution is not targeted at any particular individual or collection of individuals.
“The resolution was to restate the often-stated position that the only group known to us is APC and not any of the factional groups. It was to renew the commitment to APC and its unity.
“Aregbesola is a strong member of the political family. The GAC position does not imply any division within the group. The resolution is well-meaning and should not be misinterpreted.
“To do so impulsively as the authors of the report has done is to take the frontier of reporting away from facts to the realm of groundless speculations,” the statement read.
Leave a Reply