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A Federal lawmaker in Ekiti State, Hon Opeyemi Bamidele has refuted the allegation that he has started begging the national leader of the All Progressives Congress, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu to return to the party, describing the criticism as a puerile, preposterous and misdirected venom against his personality.
Bamidele said, he holds Tinubu in high esteem being his political mentor and benefactor, but insisted that he doesn’t need to beg anybody to return to the party, if he so desires.
The Labour Party Governorship candidate in the June 21 Governorship election in Ekiti state said this on Friday in reaction to an online publication where Tinubu was alleged to have told him to seek forgiveness from members of APC in Ekiti and not him to return to the party.
A statement signed by his media aide, Ahmed Salami, said Bamidele as a Lawyer and Federal Legislator was well equipped with the provisions of the laws, particularly Section 36 of the 1999 constitution, which
gives every Nigerian the unfettered rights to belong to any political party of his choice.
Describing the publication as a blatant falsehood and attempt to misinform the unsuspecting members of the public, Bamidele stated that by that provision of the law, he does not need to cringe or beg
anybody to return to APC, alluding to the publication as a ploy to discredit him or make unwarranted political capital out of nothing.
Bamidele urged his detractors not to be intellectually lazy in digging out veracious information to help their course, saying the said phantom meeting they claimed he held with Tinubu on December 23 could only existed in the demented imaginations of his critics because he left the shores of the country for United States of America for
Christmas and New Year’s celebrations on December 21.
On his tie with Tinubu, Bamidele posited that evidence still abound that his loyalty to his political mentor remains unflinching, which he said vividly manifested by his resolve not to attack the All Progressives Congress during his electioneering campaign, but rather against the leadership style of ex-governor Kayode Fayemi.
He said the struggle being made by these critics to create a wedge between him and Tinubu would be nugatory, for the duo had gone beyond pettiness and parochial considerations being flaunted around by these detractors.
The Federal Lawmaker added that defection has never been a crime in a democracy, but revealed that some of his protégés in LP are seeking various positions in 2015 elections and that he would not have allowed them to plunge into the race, if returning to APC is on his card for now.
The Federal Lawmaker said it smacks of idiocy for them to hide under the much unrestricted online publication to resort to incendiary and derisive comments against him, having lost credibility before the citizens of the State.
He said he had always been a member of the inner caucus of Tinubu’s political family since 1991 during the Social Democratic Party and that his relationship with the former Governor of Lagos State goes beyond political bounds, contrary to what was being parochially painted by these calumnious campaigners .
“For the purpose of correcting the ignorance of these online brute, I started as a member of Alliance For Democracy in 1999 through 2003 and I remained steadfast even when it metamorphosed into Action Congress and Action Congress of Nigeria before bowing out because of undemocratic nature of some disgraced elements in the party prior to the 2014 election.
“Having misunderstanding in a party had always been a norm under any democratic situation. Cross carpeting and returning to any party has always been a condiment of any fledging democracy and these online
detractors have not passed any message or made any new innovation in our political system.
“The present Governor of Ekiti State, Mr Ayodele Fayose once decamped to LP when he felt disenchanted with the practices in PDP only to return to the party barely few months to the election and got the ticket to return the party to Ekiti. This is democracy in action.
“The likes of Mr Segun Oni, Senator Ayo Arise, Yinka Akerele and other great politicians in Ekiti have had causes to leave their parties to other parties to win elections at various times in the political history of our dear state.
“For the purpose of exposing the follies and shenanigans of these detractors, the present APC Chairman in Ekiti State, Chief Jide Awe,
was a member of PDP before defecting to ACD and later Action Congress during his frosty relationship with Fayose in 2004.
“Today in Ekiti, seven members of the present House of Assembly, who got their tickets by way of armtwisting other aspirants to drop their ambitions in 2011, the way they did to me in the senatorial
contest, had decamped to PDP. They should now tell the world what story they intended to pass with the befuddled message?
“Going nationally, the respected members of APC today, who are the greatest and most reliable catalysts to the party, like Governors Rotimi Amaechi, Rabiu Kwankwaso, Ahmed Abdulfatah , Magatarkarda Wammako, Mr Demola Seriki, Samuel Ortom, Barnabas Gemade, and others too numerous to mention, are decampees in APC”.
He said he remains a member of LP for now and urged his party supporters to discountenance the rants of his enemies via frivolous online publications.
Bamidele appealed to his supporters to be steadfast and be unwavering in their refusal to be distracted by enemies of progress, who
perceived him as a threat to their political survival.
