Former Governor, Lagos State, Asiwaju-Bola-Ahmed-Tinubu

Eromosele Ebhomele

The Action Group of the All Progressives Congress, APC, in Ekiti State on Saturday slammed former Senator Gbenga Aluko for casting aspersions on the political relevance of Senator Bola Ahmed Tinubu within the APC.

The group, through its spokesman, Segun Dipe, described Tinubu as the unshakable pillar of the party in the South-western part of Nigeria.

In a speech he made while pleading that he be assimilated into the APC in Ekiti state, Aluko who represented Ekiti South at the upper chamber between 1999 and 2003 said, among other things, that Senator Bola Tinubu was already tired politically and was almost booted out of the APC.

But in its reaction to Aluko’s statement, the group said that it was quite unfortunate that somebody who wanted to be assimilated into a party could be coming with such a divisive mindset.

“Imagine someone still begging to join our party from dying PDP saying at our party secretariat, of all places, that those party members going to Osogbo and Bourdillion would soon regret doing so. That the man at Bourdillion was already tired and would soon be sent away from the party!

“Making such disparaging statement as he did about the party he aspires to join and its national leader is quite unfortunate, a misadventure, mischievous and a misnomer. We are not in PDP where there is no respect for leaders and elders,” the group said.

It urged Aluko to remind himself that the recent achievement of Ashiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu will forever remain very fresh in the memory of every Nigerian and should not have warranted such disparagement from him or anyone.

“Aluko wants to come and eat from a cooked food. Yet without Tinubu putting all his political arsenals to use, there would not be an APC for him to start contemplating being assimilated into today.

“We know Aluko’s antecedent of moonlighting and political prostitution. We know he loves to identify himself with other people’s success,” the group said.

Dipe said Tinubu was not just any other politician that could be equated to any politician within the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, which Aluko wanted to leave for the APC.

“For him to have made such a disparaging statement regarding our national leader therefore simply means he does not recognise our structure and cannot fit into our party.

“We are not surprised though that Aluko is making such divisive statements as we saw him doing. Or is he not the same Aluko who was quoted while in the senate as having said that he was not a Yoruba senator and was not in support of any Yoruba Agenda?

“Why then should we expect such a person to respect our culture and appreciate our values?” The group asked asking Aluko to be reminded of the Yoruba adage that says: “a child who boasted that he would have his lunch with the head of the pigeon on attaining maturity would be debarred from growing up by the same pigeon.”

“Now we know why Aluko became a pariah in his PDP. He was once accused of name-dropping by his own blood brother and he was always making unguarded statements, throwing missiles from within.

“We don’t want such a person in our party,” the group said while asking Aluko to publicly apologise to the National Leader of APC.