Minister of Marine and Blue Economy, Adegboyega Oyetola, on Friday in Osogbo declared that the fortune of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party in Osun State had nosedived in the state with the gale of defection that hit its rank.
Oyetola, the immediate past governor of the state, spoke at a rally organised to receive PDP ex-National Deputy Chairman, Alhaji Shuaib Oyedokun and ex-governorship aspirant on the platform of PDP, Mr Dotun Babayemi and their supporters into APC.
The ex-Osun State governor, who expressed confidence in the party winning the state in the next governorship election, said the defection into the party by Babayemi and his people was an indication that more people from the ruling party would join APC from the PDP before 2026 gubernatorial poll.
He further said, “It is an irony that we lost an election over a year ago and there has been no major defection from the party. What we have is the reverse. It is the ruling party that is coming to us, which shows that APC remains a party to beat. We have done so well, and people are starting to see that when it comes to governance, the progressive knows.
“The way President Tinubu has been governing us, that is what the APC governors in their respective states have been doing. I am delighted by the fact that we are not just getting anybody, but people of substance. Like Baba Suaibu, he is a veteran member of the PDP, decamping to the APC. It shows that PDP doesn’t exist any longer here.
“I am confident that in 2026, we are going to take over the state. This is just the beginning because several people are willing to come back to us, and a lot of political heavyweights are coming to join us. I welcome Dotun Babayemi and Alhaji Suiabu Oyedokun to the progressives,” he said.
Also speaking at the event, Babayemi who said good governance had ceased in Osun after Oyetola exited office, added that the present governor, Ademola Adeleke, lacked understanding of how to run a government. “The last time we witnessed good governance was in 2022 when Oyetola left government and it is time we unite to send the present administration out of government house for the sake of the state’s development.”
Reacting in a statement, Osun PDP chairman, Sunday Bisi, described Babayemi and others defection into APC as “a drama by the opposition APC to shore up its bad fortunes in Osun State.”
The party urged Osun people not to lose sleep over the “formal realignment of some political traders, whose round-tripping business of feeding fat on the common patrimony of the state was decisively halted through the July 16, 2022, governorship election.”
“The PDP believe the inglorious antecedents of the disillusioned dramatis personae involved in the soap opera of self-pleasuring are in public court. Such individuals like Mr Dotun Babayemi and his ilk have since been put in their place long before now and have ceased to be members of our party right before the 2022 governorship election,” it stated.
