Neither Tinubu nor Aregbesola directed us to AD, says Ilori 

• Accuses Akeredolu Of Being Vengeful 
A chieftain of the All Progressives Congress (APC) and former Commissioner for Regional Integration in Osun State, Mr. Bola Ilori, has denied allegations that APC National Leader, Bola Tinubu, directed him to Alliance for Democracy (AD). 

He also refuted allegations that the immediate past governor of Osun State, Rauf Aregbesola sponsored Chief Olusola Oke’s candidacy in the 2016 AD governorship election in Ondo State. Ilori said this in a statement in Akure, yesterday, while accusing Governor Oluwarotimi Akeredolu of perpetrating frauds to buy his way to Government House. 

He said: “Akeredolu’s anti-party activities would have been justifiable as a payback, were it to be that their mischiefs were directed against either Oke or Ilori. But neither of us was on the ballot, only President Buhari and our National Assembly candidates. So, it was a deliberate sabotage against the party’s fortunes.

“I laugh at how, in their confusion and desperate search for justification, they misguided themselves with falsehood and hoped it would turn into truth in an era of Google Search Engine. 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…”

However, this might not be unconnected to the query issued to Akeredolu and the party’s state leadership over alleged involvement in anti-party activities in the last election. Ilori said the Governor is vindictive and has caused a lot of disharmony within the party, adding it was strange for a man that has been governor for years to still be bearing grudges over an intra-party primary that preceded his tenure.

He recalled that the party’s Appeal Panel annulled the primaries that produced Akeredolu due to glaring fraud, and that the party’s National Working Committee (NWC) never agreed to Akeredolu’s emergence.