The All Progressives Congress (APC) in Oyo State says there is no division within its fold.
The party’s Chairman, Chief Akin Oke, said this in a statement issued on Monday in Ibadan.
Recall that some members of the party had been parading themselves as a faction of the APC in the state.
The APC in the state, which was recently thrown into mourning following the death of its leader, Sen. Abiola Ajimobi, had in 2018 witnessed internal wrangling.
This had resulted in the floating of a splinter group, ‘Unity Forum,’ through which virtually all the aggrieved members left the party to join opposition parties in the build up to the 2019 general elections.
Oke, however, warned those peddling rumours indicating existence of factions or warring groups in the party to desist from such acts.
“These groups move about to give an impression to the outside world that our party is fragmented when, in fact, we have only one Oyo APC with legal-binded Executive Committees at Ward, Local and State levels,” he said.
Oke also noted that the party has ” elected representatives comprising two senators out of the three from the state, ten House of Representatives members out of fourteen and six House of Assembly members.”
“The same people giving a wrong impression of belonging to factions are those who participated in the last general elections as aspirants, candidates and members of other political parties.
“Despite putting their best into the mission to stop all the candidates of the APC including President Muhammadu Buhari, they ended up a failure and this explains why they have no serving elected official they can call their own today.
“We have always been magnanimous to them as we have not, at any time, attempted to block the chances of some of them who have secured federal appointments through the back door.
“In actual fact, our doors are widely open for them to come back home if they want to.To this end, we are ready to reach out to known aggrieved members of our party across the state.
“And this we shall do to complement the efforts of the reconciliation committee set up by our late leader, Sen. Abiola Ajimobi, with a clear mandate to resolve all issues and further strengthen Oyo APC,” he said.
The APC chairman said that the committee headed by former Gov. Adebayo Alao-Akala had started its work in earnest.
He gave an assurance that the State Working Committee of the party was determined to carefully consider its reports and recommendations for possible action as soon as possible to plan ahead.
“More significantly, the people of the state have seen clearly the difference between the administration of the APC and that of the PDP in just a year,” he said.
Oke said ” the clamour in town today is for us in the progressive fold to put our house in order and ensure that credible candidates are again fielded to contest in 2023.”
