RESIGN FROM SENATORIAL RACE, OGUNWALE ADVISES OYINLOLA

Former Governor of Osun State, Prince Olagunsoye Oyinlola has been advised to forget his ambition of becoming a senator through the coming general elections if he does not want to be disgraced. The advice was contained in a statement signed by a former chieftain of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), who is currently in the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), Senator Felix Kola Ogunwale.

Ogunwale, who was a senator, representing Osun Central Senatorial District of Osun State on the PDP ticket between 2003 and 2007 was reacting to Oyinlola's interview in the Sunday Sun of February 6, where he complained of betrayal by his supposed loyalists.

According to Ogunwale, Oyinlola's latest predicament that culminated in his being ousted from office was as a result of his refusal to heed the advice given him to beware of boot lickers and sycophants masquerading around him as friends and admirers.

The Iragbiji-born politician therefore urged the former governor not to venture into contesting the coming April elections with a view of becoming a senator warning that if he did, he would be roundly defeated, humiliated and disgraced.

'My advice to Prince Olagunsoye Oyinlola is that he should resign honourably and quickly from Osun Central senatorial race before he is disgraced at the April elections and face ignominy. I make bold to say that the kind of people left with him today are there to squeeze out what is left of the resources at his disposal. Such very few cronies are not with him to save him from the impending political disaster that is imminent. He would soon realise this, but it will be too late to make amends,' Ogunwale counselled.

He wrote further thus: 'Oyinlola should remember that at the beginning of his leadership of PDP in Osun State in 2003, I, Senator Kola Ogunwale, pointedly told him he should recognise those who truly love him and want to work for him to succeed, instead of the sycophants and bootlickers, who could drink his urine all in a bid to deceive him and siphon funds from him.'

'Even with his military background, which should have made him very assertive and alert at all times to human innuendoes and false pretences, the former governor danced naked in the market. A person of his caliber, who was brought up in the palace, where discipline is the order of the day and a training ground, that nurture princes from their youth on management of people's affairs, Oyinlola failed woefully to grasp the opportunity, and therefore failed as a governor.

I know that my father is not a king, but I will never deceive anybody because of what I will profit from that person or establishment. Today, it is an unfortunate history and a sad commentary, that Prince Olagunsoye Oyinlola, has led PDP in Osun State into a bottomless pit and shame. In the process, he threw Osun State PDP into dustbin of unimaginable disrepute and early death. An irredeemable path to extinction.

'Prince Olagunsoye Oyinlola, for purpose of incontrovertible fact, should remember, that I came down to his Okuku country home and emphatically told him, that his cronies and supposed loyalists were planning to destabilize our then party - the PDP, which formation in Osun State in 1998, I immensely contributed to, alongside late Chief S. M. Afolabi and Dr. Olu Alabi.

I offered my wide shoulders for PDP to lean on financially between 1999 and 2003, when it was a political leper in Osun. Rather than heeding my submission and listen to voice of wisdom, Prince Olagunsoye Oyinlola asked me to start recording his cronies and other people's voices on tape to convince him of my patriotic observations. Of course I refused to toe Oyinlola's line of thought.

'Why (then) is Prince Olagunsoye Oyinlola crying wolf today, where there is none, when he has received enough warnings from me, but took me as his enemy, which I am not till tomorrow. Facts are sacred. Today, former governor Oyinlola, should know, that I am his best friend, though he misunderstood me, because the political lilliputians and sycophants around him, when he was in government, would not allow him to think straight.

'They went extra miles to outdone the innocent man, including diabolical tendencies as confessed by some of these sycophants recently. I could not imagine a person of Oyinlola's caliber, after being a military administrator in Lagos State for three years and a civilian governor in Osun State for seven and a half years, not to be able to build enough succour and goodwill, to give him a soft landing to pursue his senatorial ambition, but would now personally resort to house to house campaign, soliciting for peoples votes.

'This is shameful and I pity him. Where are his cronies and good-weather friends, who dined and wined with him for seven and a half years, to bail him out of his political travails and predicament? It is sad to see all the people that Oyinlola used to supposedly harass and intimidate me - Kola Ogunwale in his hay-days, not able to perform and promote the fortunes of PDP in Osun State , not to talk of rescuing Oyinlola from leaving office abruptly.'

Ogunwale therefore, asserted that, 'I, Senator Kola Ogunwale, am his best friend over the years and not (among) the sycophants that he surrounded himself with, when he was in power and who by now, have deserted him for greener postures.'