Aggrieved with the outcome of Friday’s governorship primary election on the platform of the All Progressives Party (APC), Adebayo Adelabu, on Sunday, announced his defection from the party.
Mr Adelabu, a former Deputy Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), said he was taking all his supporters across the 33 local governments in Oyo State to the new party, not yet disclosed.
The aspirant said he took the decision at an enlarged meeting of his mandate group held at his campaign office in Ibadan, the capital city of the state.
The News Agency of Nigeria(NAN) reports that Ayoade Adeseun and other leaders presided over the meeting.
Mr Adelabu and many other aggrieved aspirants had described the last APC primaries as “a charade”, alleging that the delegates list used was compromised.
He said no amount of intimidation, threat or harassment could stop him from his passionate ambition of revolutionising the political, social and economic landscape of the state.
“All I can tell the whole world for now is that I am going to contest in the 2023 general elections as a governorship candidate, no matter what.
“No amount of intimidation, threat or harassment can stop me from my passionate ambition of revolutionising the political, social and economic landscape of Oyo State through the machinery of government,” he said.
Mr Adelabu said he was already in consultation with some political parties which would be unveiled as soon as possible.
In his remarks, Mr Adeseun said they were ready to follow Mr Adelabu to any political party where their dream of serving the people of the state would be actualised.
Mr Adeseun, a former APC senatorial aspirant, assured Mr Adelabu of their wholehearted support in whichever party they eventually moved to.
“We can’t continue to condone the excesses and impunity of these people, whose stock-in-trade is to hijack all about. We are the progressives and we will teach them politics,” he said.
Also, Olusola Ayandele, Kunle Sanda, Isiaka Alimi, Goke Oyetunji, Gunju Ojo and Ayodeji Abass-Aleshinloye in their separate remarks, declared their readiness to dump the APC.
They also pledged their unflinching support toward the actualisation of Mr Adelabu’s governorship ambition in any of the political parties they agreed to join.
Mr Adelabu was the governorship candidate of the APC in the 2019 gubernatorial election in the state but lost to the incumbent governor, Seyi Makinde, who has also won the ticket of his party -the PDP – for a second term in office.
Mr Adelabu was reportedly backed by the then governor of the state, Abiola Ajimobi, now late, to emerge as the governorship candidate of the APC in the 2019 elections.
Teslim Folarin, a serving senator, won the APC governorship ticket in the primary election conducted on Friday.
