Posted by By YINKA FABOWALE, Ibadan on
Indications emerged at the weekend that Oyo State Governor Adebayo Alao-Akala's decision to readmit the Rashidi Ladoja break-away faction of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) back into the party's fold in the state may not have gone down well with his loyalists and other party members.
Indications emerged at the weekend that Oyo State Governor Adebayo Alao-Akala's decision to readmit the Rashidi Ladoja break-away faction of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) back into the party's fold in the state may not have gone down well with his loyalists and other party members.
They are expressing displeasure with what they described as 'the too liberal and accommodating disposition" of the governor even as they question the motive of the splinter group's intention to seek reconciliation.
Daily Sun had exclusively reported a new found rapprochement between Akala and his estranged former boss at a private meeting brokered by the PDP reconciliation committee in Ibadan last week, in which it was agreed that both camps should unite.
A commissioner in the Akala cabinet, who said the governor actually confirmed the parley at the meeting of the state executive council last week observed that Akala had too much of a large heart, noting that if it were Ladoja, he would have shut the door against the opposing faction.
'You know Ladoja is a very vindictive person. If he were to be in the governor's shoes, I tell you, that would have been the end to the other group's membership of the PDP," he said, citing how the former governor worked to scuttle Akala's election after he was reinstated in office.
Another source told Daily Sun 'I think Oga has too much of a large heart. For someone who showed you so much hostility and worked against the party's interest, you have no business sitting together with him."
But if you tell him, the man will just shrug and say, that is what has always vindicated him and give him victory over his detractors and foes."
He, however, warned the governor to be wary as he suspected the motive of the Ladoja's group in seeking a return into the fold, saying it might be to plot hijacking the party machinery.The source waxed proverbial: 'You know the Yoruba people have a saying that the walnuts stay inside the same womb, yet they don't know each other's secrets."
But, he was quick to point out that ' if that is their game plan, they have missed the boat, because we are no buffoons or stupid to watch them do as they liked.
Another Akala's aide said the returnees must not expect or demand participation in this government, because left to them it would not have been. 'This is a government they did all they could to ensure it did not see the light of the day. What moral justification would they have to make such demand," he said.