Akure, Ondo State — The movement of members between political tendencies within the Ondo State chapter of the All Progressives Congress (APC) cannot unsettle Governor Lucky Aiyedatiwa’s leadership, a former spokesperson of the Aiyedatiwa Campaign Organisation, Barrister Banji Okunomo, has said.
Okunomo, a lawyer, stated this in a statement made available to journalists in Akure on Friday, while reacting to reports suggesting that recent internal realignments within the party represented a setback for the Governor.
He said members moving from one political alignment to another within the APC should not be confused with defection from the party.
According to him, Governor Aiyedatiwa, as the leader of the APC in Ondo State, remained focused on governance and party-building and was neither worried nor perturbed by the development.
“The Governor is not worried. He is not perturbed. He remains focused and continues to provide leadership to the party,” he said. Okunomo described the APC as a large political family whose members had different interests and political aspirations, adding that it was natural for some members to change their political alignments within the party from time to time.
He said such movements could not reasonably be interpreted as evidence of leadership failure.
“As long as the person remains within the APC, moving from one political alignment to another within the same party is not defection. It is simply an internal political realignment which is not injurious to the party,” he stated.
The former campaign spokesperson also pointed to the scale of appointments made by the Aiyedatiwa administration as evidence of the Governor’s efforts to accommodate a broad spectrum of interests within the party.
He noted that the Governor had approved the appointment of 90 Senior Special Assistants and 910 Special Assistants, in addition to three Special Advisers and a commissioner nominee.
According to him, the appointments had created substantial political opportunities for APC members, although he acknowledged that not everybody could be appointed at the same time.
“Where people are not immediately accommodated, some may naturally seek another political alignment within the party. That is normal. It does not mean that the Governor’s leadership has failed or is failing,” he said.
Okunomo maintained that the real distinction should be between internal realignment within the APC and actual defection to another political party.
He said Governor Aiyedatiwa could not reasonably be expected to be embarrassed by members choosing different tendencies within the same political platform. “Not everybody can be appointed. The APC is too large for every member’s expectations to be met at once. But that should not be turned into a narrative of leadership failure as being peddled by disgruntled mischief-makers,” he stated.
He urged party members and political commentators to stop portraying every internal movement as a crisis, stressing that politics naturally involved negotiation, realignment and the expression of different interests.
Okunomo added that Governor Aiyedatiwa remained focused on governance, party cohesion and delivering on his responsibilities to the people of Ondo State.
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