APC Crisis Deepens in Ogbomoso South as Parallel Congress Results Emerge

The internal crisis within the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Ogbomoso South Local Government Area of Oyo State has escalated following the emergence of parallel congress results, with rival factions laying claim to the legitimacy of the exercise conducted to elect local party executives.

The controversy, which is believed to reflect the growing political rivalry between camps loyal to Fatai Buhari and Ayoade Adeseun, has thrown the party structure in the local government into uncertainty.

According to a statement circulated on social media by a party member, Hon. Diran Alao (Adex), the ward and local government congresses of the APC were conducted peacefully across the country, including in Ogbomoso South.

He explained that prior to the congress, major stakeholders constituted a harmonisation committee tasked with producing a consensus executive list that would accommodate the various political tendencies within the party.

The committee reportedly included former and current political actors such as Hon. Ademola Olateju, Hon. Wale Adeleke, Hon. Abiodun Adeyemo and Hon. Sunday Adedeji, among others, representing different caucuses including the Akala group, BAF group, Accord returnees, SDP bloc and a group described as Halleluyah (PDP).

According to the statement, the committee agreed on a power-sharing arrangement distributing party executive positions among the various groups. The breakdown reportedly allocated 30 percent of positions to the BAF group, 25 percent to the Akala group, 20 percent to Accord returnees, 15 percent to the Halleluyah group and 10 percent to the SDP bloc.

However, the process allegedly collapsed after Hon. Sunday Adedeji reportedly rejected the agreed arrangement and demanded the position of Local Government Secretary, which had been allocated to another faction.

The statement further claimed that on the day of the local government congress held at Ijeru Baptist Day School, Ijeru, Adedeji allegedly left the venue with the harmonised list shortly before nominations were to be formalised.

This reportedly prompted an emergency stakeholders’ meeting convened by Senator Buhari at his Ibapon residence in Ogbomoso.

At the meeting, party leaders were said to have resolved that the previously agreed list should be submitted to the congress committee or that the Option A4 voting system should be adopted if consensus failed.

According to the account, the harmonised list was eventually submitted to the state party secretariat in Ibadan after waiting for representatives of the dissenting faction who allegedly failed to forward their nominees.

In a swift response, Hon. Sunday Adedeji dismissed the claims and questioned the authenticity of the list being circulated by the opposing faction.

Reacting to the statement, the former council chairman challenged his critics to confirm whether the document they were presenting was the official list endorsed by the congress committee chairman and secretary from the APC national secretariat.

“It is irredeemably shattering to a man’s ego seeing one’s beloved gold as a glittering fake,” Adedeji wrote, insisting that the document being circulated by his opponents may not be the authentic congress result.

The dispute has reportedly produced two competing claims to the leadership of the APC in Ogbomoso South, with one faction declaring Jide Leke as the duly recognised local government chairman while the other insists that the harmonised list earlier agreed by stakeholders remains the valid outcome.