Tinubu didn’t fund AD in Ondo, APC chieftain replies Akeredolu

A chieftain of the All Progressives Congress, Bola Ilori, has accused Governor of Ondo state, Oluwarotimi Akeredolu of spreading false information about the National Leader of the party, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu.

Illori in a statement issued in Akure on Thursday, said the insinuations that Tinubu funded his governorship campaign after he was forced out of the APC to the AD in 2016 was totally untrue.

“I also wish to place on the record that, as the Director General of the Alliance for Democracy campaigns in 2016, I don’t have any record of funding received from Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola or Senator Ajayi Boroffice for the AD. I dare Akeredolu and his team to come up with such fact.

“Let it be noted that neither Asiwaju Tinubu nor Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola directed us to the AD nor funded the party. They did not campaign for the party to the best of my record, also. If any of Akeredolu minions is in possession of substantive evidence against any of our leaders let such fellow come forward with it or forever keep their peace.

He said if any of Akeredolu minions is in possession of substantive evidence against any of the party’s leaders “let such fellow come forward with it or forever keep their peace.

According to Illori who was a former commissioner in Osun state, Akeredolu’s penchant for vendetta culminated into the unhealthy disunity and disharmony within the state chapter of the APC.

He said, “Some of us could not stand such shenanigan led by Chief John Odigie-Oyegun. We followed the party’s internal mechanism, but it was unilaterally terminated by the then National Chairman.

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“Subsequently, we left the party in the expression of our democratic rights on the platform of another party in agitation against the clear injustice. We lost the elections.

“The leaders of the party appealed to all aggrieved against the gubernatorial election processes to drop all further agitation and return to the party and embrace unity. The Governor thereafter organized a unity rally and I attended.

“Chief Olusola Oke has since been working hard for the success of the party and was the South West Coordinator of the APC Presidential Campaign, while I, who was his Director General in the AD was the Chairman of the APC Presidential Campaign Council (Field Operations) Door – Door Campaign throughout the Country.

“Let me put it on record; if they are too lazy to Google, I was not holding any position in the party or government six months before and after the 2016 elections, contrary to their claims that I was in Osun Government while in AD, Osun had no cabinet for about 16 months at the time. So, dragging Aregbesola into their justification of treachery is not only based on falsehood but pure mischief,” he said.