DON’T BE DECEIVED; IT’S A PROXY WAR GOING ON IN OSUN; AREGBESOLA UNDER ATTACK FROM DIABOLICAL BROTHERS, By Eyiwunmi Adebowale

The revelation that Governor Gboyega Oyetola is actually Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s brother and not his nephew, as previously assumed is myth shattering. This has changed and put into proper focus the understanding of the crisis in Osun State All Progressives Congress (APC) and the siege that Governor Oyetola has laid on his immediate predecessor and Minister of Interior, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola.

An old politician in Oyo State who I will not name (for security reasons) told some people in Ibadan recently that the national leader of APC and former governor of Lagos State between 1999 and 2007 had lived in the same house with him in Ibadan in the 1960s and 1970s; that his name was Amoda Sangodele; that he attended Ibadan Boys High School and Gboyega Oyetola was his half-brother.

Oyetola’s media team had persistently sold the false narrative that Aregbesola wants to be a political godfather and wants to control the party and the government in Osun, which Oyetola is still stoutly resisting.

But what people close to Asiwaju who know the issues had said was that the crisis in Osun is not between Governor Oyetola and Ogbeni Aregbesola. Rather, they are unequivocal that it is actually between Asiwaju and Aregbesola. It is their contention that Asiwaju was told by some spiritual media he consulted on his presidential ambition that they could not see him on their crystal ball but they saw Rauf.

It is for this reason that Asiwaju never wanted him to be minister and even worked against his nomination and prevailed on Governor Oyetola to nominate Senator Iyiola Omisore. It was revealed later that it was President Muhammadu Buhari who used his pen to cancel out Omisore’s name on the list and in longhand wrote Aregbesola in the space. It was also well known that Buhari called the Senate President on phone to let him know the correction he made in longhand in case some people were trying to play pranks and submitted the list containing Omisore’s name.

Another issue is that Asiwaju is paranoid on any of his henchmen operating on the bigger federal canvass. His worst fear is that they might overshadow him. For this reason, Dr Olorunimbe Mamora fell out with him when he was becoming popular in the senate. He was quick to take the ticket from him and he gave his wife, Senate Oluremi Tinubu, who has been in the senate since then.

There are even unconfirmed report that he threw Osinbajo under the bus with the cabal, after he shone brilliantly during the periods he was acting president. Asiwaju felt that the rising profile of Osinbajo might spell doom for his own ambition and then did him in with the cabal by telling them Osinbajo   was praying for Buhari to die so he could take his place.

He was therefore mortally afraid that the northern establishment would see the gem in Aregbesola if he is given federal exposure and they would prefer his protégé to him. He would rather Rauf returned to Lagos as full-time politician and coordinate his presidential campaign for him the way he successfully did his senatorial and governorship elections in the past.

His hatred towards Aregbesola emerged when he became minister and was even heightened when he got to that position without his support. Asiwaju then vowed in the presence of some people that he would deplatform Aregbesola in Lagos and Osun and reduce him to a political orphan.

He began by disbanding the Mandate Group, a caucus of the APC for supporting Tinubu and later removed him from the Governor’s Advisory Council, the apex ruling committee of the APC in Lagos.

Still unrelenting in his diabolical scheme, he promoted, encouraged and empowered Adejoke Orelope-Adefulire and Ejigbadero to hijack Alimosho from him. In the last local government election and APC wards and local government elections in Lagos State, Asiwaju ensured that anyone remotely associated with Aregbesola is denied ticket and any position. It is a brewing crisis on its own that could sink the party in coming elections. These collateral victims are the most fanatical loyalists of Asiwaju and the party in the state who were always doing his bidding and had helped him build the myth of a political superman.

It is the same instruction that Asiwaju gave his brother, Oyetola, that is playing out in Osun. Oyetola too had made the boast to some people that he would wipe out Aregbesola’s remembrance in Osun after six months. Given all he has done to destroy Aregbesola’s eight-year legacies in Osun, it is clear he takes instructions from his elder half-brother, but they have found Osun a hard nut to crack.

Osun is not Lagos. Aregbesola came to Osun after Chief Bisi Akande was roundly defeated by Oyinlola in 2003 and reorganised the party from the ward level, remaking it in his own image. As governor for eight years, he warmed himself into the hearts of the people with his charisma, panache, unprecedented social intervention programmes and the force of his character. He therefore has cultivated cult loyalty within the party and a groundswell of followers in the state. This is the formidable rock that Asiwaju and his brother Oyetola have been hitting their walls against.

It is therefore a misperception and a wild goose chase to think that the fight in Osun is between Aregbesola and Oyetola. No. far from it. Oyetola is fighting a proxy war, siding with his brother. After all, the blood, they say, is thicker than water. Aregbesola is the target of the vicious attack of these diabolical brothers. But the question is how far will they succeed in fighting a man whom God has blessed?