Tension in Osun local government as APC factions clash during ward meeting

Members of the All Progressives Congress in Ward 3, Irepodun Local Government ran helter skelter as disagreement broke out between supporters of IleriOluwa and The Osun Progressives (TOP) during a ward meeting of the party on Friday.

The incident resulted from a disagreement over the leadership of the ward.

The crisis it was learnt broke out shortly after the commencement of the meeting as members of the Ileri Oluwa group were reading the list of the ward executives, who are products of the consensus during the last Saturday’s party congress.

Party members present at the meeting stated that some thugs and TOP members stormed the venue of the meeting and snatched the paper which contained the names of the ward executives.

The members who accused TOP of scattering the meeting stated that party members were chased away.

They added that the meeting was put on hold as everyone left the venue for safety of their lives.

A member of the party who did not want his name in print, disclosed that same incident occured in Ward 6, Ilobu as members of a particular caucus disrupted the meeting.

Debunking the allegation, a member of The Osun Progressives, Olaniyan Babatunde insisted that no thug was present at the meeting.

In his words, “There were no thugs. It was we the Blue Movement and TOP that snatched the paper that contains the names of the EXCOS that they were reading. We ensured that no meeting was held at the venue.”

He maintained that TOP members were peace minded and there were no thugs amongst them, adding that they did not go to any ward meeting armed with machete.

He added that members of the IleriOluwa group only took to their heels when they saw them coming.

The Caretaker Chairman of Irepodun local government, Barrister Adegoke Ogunsola, however, stated that the meetings were disrupted by thugs and not members of TOP, adding that they may have been sponsored by them.

He also disclosed that despite the disagreement and the disruption of the ward meetings, the ward meetings will still hold across the ten wards in the local government.

Ward 3, Irepodun local government is the ward of the Chairman of the APC Elders Council and Former Secretary to the State Government, Engr. Sola Akinwunmi.

This medium had reported that following the ratification of the list of nominees announcement of the caretaker committee members for the local government , disgruntled party members had lit burn fires as a form of protests against unnecessary interference and discarding of internal democracy in the party.