A group within the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Oyo State, Progressives Forum for Good Governance, has warned against the alleged adoption of the Minister of Power, Chief Adebayo Adelabu, as the gubernatorial candidate of the party for the 2027 election.
The group in a statement by its Coordinator, Mr. Bolade Adeyemi, while reacting to a story in an online medium that Adelabu was adopted at a meeting held in Aso Rock Villa two weeks ago, said Adelabu would be a bad product to sell by the party.
Adeyemi who insisted that the Power Minister has never won any election for the progressives family in the state, disclosed that despite that he was imposed in 2019 over the likes of eminent party members that include Chief Niyi Akintola, SAN, who was the last man standing till the night before the primary, he lost the gubernatorial election to a supposed underdog assisted by a coalition despite the incumbency factor of the party.
The group added that showing himself as a non- committed party member, Adelabu abandoned the party immediately he lost the election, noting that this paved way for a smart ‘Jagba’ to take the party away from him and installing his stooges in the hierarchy of the party.
Adeyemi stated further that it is a known fact that when he lost the gubernatorial ticket of the party in 2023, he jumped ship to another party thinking that he has people behind him, declaring that the Power Minister failed to realise that the few people that followed him left because they believed that they have a common enemy in the winner of the party’s ticket.
The group while reminding Adelabu that during the electioneering campaign in 2023 he was in a radio program in the state where he lampooned the APC and declared that it cannot win the election, stated that positioning himself for 2027 within the same party would be speaking from two sides of the mouth.
While maintaining that Adelabu could not be the only intelligent and Ibadan indigene that should be having all the positions coming to the ancient city and the state as a whole, it called on the leadership of the party not to make the mistake of putting him forward as the governorship candidate of the party in 2027.
The statement read, “What is not in doubt is that Adelabu is certainly not the best that Ibadan can offer in 2027 and it would not be out place to say that he has had his fair share of positions coming to the state. First he was given the position of the South West in the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and became the Deputy Governor and presently he is a serving Minister in a powerful Ministry of Power.
“It is our sincere admonition to the leadership of the party that if APC is desirious of sending the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) out of the Agodi Government House come 2027 it should not touch Adelabu with a long pole. Rather he should be left to face his job as Power Minister because if truly he is performing there is no reason for President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to release him from his cabinet. The question that we need to ask is, would any President release his performing Minister if indeed such a Minister is performing?”