House of Representatives member, Lawrence Ayeni (APC-Osun) has said Pastor Enoch Adeboye had tried to settle the political rift between Osun State governor Gboyega Oyetola and his predecessor in office, Rauf Aregbesola, to no avail.
Adeboye, the General Overseer of the Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG) and Aregbesola, the incumbent Minister of Interior, are both from Osun State
Ayeni, who represents Ilesha West/Ilesha East, Atakumosa East/Atakumosa West Federal Constituency of Osun State in the Lower House, disclosed this in an interview in Abuja on Monday.
It would be recalled that the state’s 15th July governorship election was won by the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) candidate partly due to the rift between the Ileri-Oluwa group and The Osun Progressive (TOP).
The Ileri-Oluwa group is headed by the governor, while the TOP group is led by the minister. Ayeni said a reconciliation meeting aimed at settling the rift between the two gladiators was actually fixed and billed to be mediated by Pastor Adeboye but that one of them failed to show up.
The lawmaker said that although Adeboye initially declined the offer to mediate in the duo’s political rift, saying he was not a politician, he later accepted the offer to broker peace between the belligerent politicians.
“Adeboye said that for him, he was not a politician and he was not going to poke-nose because of certain things but the two of them could not meet in his house.
“Had it been they were able to meet him, maybe the crisis would have been over. One of them did not even go for the scheduled meeting with Adeboye and Adeboye said well, that is it,” he said.
Ayeni said that others like former interim Chairman of APC, Chief Bisi Akande, former governor Segun Osoba and even the Presidential candidate of APC, Sen Bola Tinubu also tried to settle the rift to no avail. He said that all the APC House of Reps members from Osun State also did their best to resolve the crisis but met a brick wall.
According to him, “up to the stage that the election was approaching, the chairman of the party called them, but if one side comes today, the other won’t come.”