Dare Lists Conditions For APC To Win Oyo Back

The Minister of Sports and Youth Development, Mr Sunday Dare, has said the aggrieved parties in the All Progressives Congress in Oyo State must bury their differences and resolve to work together if the party wants to win back the state.

Governor Seyi Makinde of the Peoples Democratic Party won the state which was ruled for eight years by the APC government headed by the late Senator Abiola Ajimobi.

Dare said resolving individual differences and agreeing to work together for the unity of the party would return the opposition party to power, saying the state naturally belonged to the progressives fold. 

Dare said this in a speech delivered during his visit to some aggrieved leaders of the APC in Ibadan on Saturday.

The minister also urged the APC executive in the state to embrace inclusive mentality and shun the unfair treatment of some persons because of the various groups which they belonged within the party.

The statement read, “The APC in Oyo State can only progress if we pull together. Disunity is just another way of  defeat. We fight against each other at our own collective peril.

Ambition is part of the body of politics. However, unbridled ambition serves only to tear that body down. Undue ambition and resultant fractiousness will cause to collapse the very thing we seek to build. 

“The notion of entitlement or personal ownership of the Oyo APC will keep the party stuck as if caught in wet cement. No one of us owns the party. We all do. The party is an institution of collective membership but also collective ownership.

“The only banner we should raise is the APC banner. Any idea that some informal and nebulous sub-faction should rule and is more important than the party itself must be tossed out the window. To exalt some small group over the larger is against the democratic spirit of the party and it will fate us all to a troublesome and adverse future.
 

“The ongoing efforts by our south west political leaders – Chief Bisi Akande, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu among others to establish unity and reconcile all members of the state APC is to be lauded. All of us must hold to the promise of a stronger APC that is able to reposition Oyo in the  regional and federal political spectrum as a pace setter among the various states. 
 

“The future is ours but we can well lose the future if we persist with parochialism, self entitlement, jostling and vindictive behavior. Party leadership must be earned through prior exemplary service to the party and through loyal contribution to the development of the state. Respected leadership cannot be commandeered.”