Olufemi Atoyebi and Eniola Akinkuotu
An All Progressives
Congress stalwart, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, and a former Governor of Oyo
State, Adebayo Alao-Akala, have met over possible partnership ahead of
the governorship election in Oyo State on March 9, The PUNCH has learnt.
Alao-Akala,
who is running for governor on the platform of the Action Democratic
Party, confirmed this to one of our correspondents on Wednesday.
He, however, asked The PUNCH to give him 24 hours to make a formal statement.
“It
is true. Both of us have been meeting and we will continue to meet. I
will call you in 24 hours to let you know the state of things,” he said.
Top
sources close to the two politicians told our correspondents that
Tinubu initiated the meeting after the Peoples Democratic Party
Presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar, won the presidential election in
the state.
A PDP candidate, Dr Kola Balogun defeated Governor Abiola Ajimobi’s who contested the Oyo-South senatorial election.
A
source close to Tinubu said Ajimobi’s defeat showed that the people of
Oyo State could vote against the APC candidate, Adebayo Adelabu.
The source said, “Tinubu and Alao-Akala met on Tuesday. Tinubu asked
Alao-Akala, who has many supporters in Ogbomoso, to collapse his
structure into that of Adelabu. We know that if Alao-Akala was in our
camp, there was no way Atiku would have had such a good outing in Oyo
State, especially Ogbomoso.
“The PDP governorship candidate, Seyi
Makinde, is popular and he is also an Ibadan guy like Adelabu, which
means that they will both split the votes in Ibadan. The APC will need
to forge an alliance with elements in Ogbomoso to get an advantage.”
When
asked why the APC did not forge an alliance with Alao-Akala before now,
the source said they would have done so but Governor Ajimobi told them
that there was no need to worry.
He added, “We knew that the
people were not too happy with the governor as far back as June 2018
when the PDP candidate, Adebo Ogundoyin, won Ibarapa-East Constituency
by-election which was held to fill the vacant position created by the
death of former speaker of the House of Assembly, Michael Adeyemo.
“We
knew that Alao-Akala and Ajimobi had met last year before Alao-Akala
joined the ADP. He had made some demands but Ajimobi did not play the
politics right. Also, Ajimobi’s decision to convert some chiefs to full
monarchs was unpopular among many people.”
Source:- Punchng
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