A former governor of Osun State, Olagunsoye Oyinlola, and the immediate past governor of Ondo State, Olusegun Mimiko, on Monday stormed the Ibadan home of the former governor of Oyo State, Rashidi Ladoja, in an effort to woo him to their different political parties.
Ladoja rejoined the Peoples Democratic Party from the Accord Party last year but there was friction in his relationship with the National Working Committee of the PDP over the formation of the state executive.
The battle reached a new height two weeks ago when the NWC inaugurated the state executive with the former governor allegedly unhappy that some of his candidates were not in the executive.
He also issued a seven-day ultimatum to the PDP NWC to address his grievance, threatening to leave if the situation remained the same.
Oyinlola and Mimiko arrived at Ladoja home around 10 am and held separate closed-door meetings with Ladoja where, according to a reliable source, both former governors attempted to woo the Ibadan High Chief to their parties.
Oyinlola, who recently dumped the All Progressives Congress to join the African Democratic Congress, was said to have told Ladoja to defect to the ADC with his supporters ahead of the 2019 general elections.
Also at the meeting were Senator Femi Lanlehin, a former Secretary to the Oyo State Government, Sharafadeen Alli and a few allies of Ladoja.
When confronted with questions about his visit to Ladoja, Oyinlola told our correspondent before being driven away that it was a private visit.
Immediately after the meeting with Oyinlola, Ladoja went into another meeting with Mimiko.
The source said that the former Ondo State governor told Ladoja and his supporters to join him at the Labour Party.
Mimiko also dumped the PDP recently to rejoin LP. Like Oyinlola, Mimiko refused to talk about the meeting.
When approached by our correspondent, Ladoja also refused to speak about the meeting, saying Oyinlola and Mimiko were his friends who decided to visit him.
It was also learnt that Ladoja would later in the day hold a meeting with the representatives of the Unity Forum, which left the Oyo APC after a disagreement with Governor Abiola Ajimobi over the state APC executive formation.
The forum filed an action against the party but most of the members said that the relationship between them and the APC was irredeemable.
The Secretary of the forum, Wasiu Olatunbosun, said the group would shop for another platform but ruled out joining the PDP.
Source: Punch
