Ajimobi loses Lanlehin to Ladoja

By Sola Shittu at Ibadan


The hot political terrain of Oyo State took a new turn yesterday as Governor Abiola Ajimobi loses the Senator from the state left in APC to Senator Rashidi Ladoja’s Accord Party.
In a grand public rally and official presentation of Lanlehin and others to party members, Senator Ladoja officially handed over the party flag to Lanlehin declaring him free to contest for any elective office under the party except governorship office reserved for Senator Ladoja who is the national face of Accord Party.
In a rally that lasted over six hours, Accord supporters troop out in hundreds of thousands to welcom APC, PDP and Labour party decampees causing traffic gridlock all over streets and main roads adjourning Beere, Oja Oba, Idi arere, Orita merin and other areas of the ancient city.
Heavy security protection were provided by the Department of State Security Service (DSS), Nigerian Civil Defence Security, armed police men who stationed armour cars strategically at the venu of the event.
Among other decampees received into the party yesterday are Senator Gbenga Babalola of the People’s Democratic Party,
PDP, and another APC leader, Yemi Aderibigbe.
On the ground to receive them are former  Governor of Oyo State, Senator Rashidi Ladoja, assisted by state chairman
of the party, Arc. Bashir Bola Lawal, State Secretary, Hon. Ogundiya
Oguntoye and other members of the state leader of the party which included the incumbent Deputy Speaker of the Oyo State House of Assembly, Mr. David Babatunde Olaniyan Akoro and former Speaker, Rt. Hon. Adeolu Adeleke.
Ladoja, whose entry into the Mapo Hall Arena venue of the heavily crowded
event, could not wholly expressed what his joy was, as he said although Accord was already fully on ground in Oyo State but that the coming Senator Lanlehin would be moral booster of great deal.  He then promised the mammoth crowd and the entire people of Oyo State that the Accord party would not let them down, if elected to form a new government beginning from
May 29, 2015.  “We did it before and we shall do it even better again,” Ladoja said.

In his own speech, Lanlehin, who described Ladoja as “my leader and father”
urged Oyo State people particularly his supporters to vote Senator Rashidi
Ladoja for the office of governor come 2015 and also give their votes
during the coming elections to enable ensure whoever would be in government
at any level from Local Government through the state to the federal would be  of Accord.
Former Oyo State Speaker, Rt. Hon. Adeolu Adeleke simply told the people to
hold the All Progressive Congress, APC, by its words. “The APC when they
were ACN said you should not vote for a party that does not a Senator.
Today that Senator Lanlehin is now in Accord, I want to urge you the people
of Oyo State, entirely, not to vote for APC because it is now truly a party
that does not have a Senator,” he said.

Other speakers at the event said the  defection of Senator Lanlehin to Accord, even as one other APC Senator was said to have also left the ruling
for PDP, would greatly cause the APC electoral successes in the coming
election.  The defection of Senator Gbenga Babalola formerly of PDP had
also been said to be a crack that the PDP might not be able mend in a hurry.

Others in attendance at the event included Member of House of
Representatives and Deputy Chairman, House Committee on Education, Hon.
Abiola Adebukola Ajaja; another serving Accord’s House of Representatives
Member, Hon. Busari Olayemi and many others.