...Oyo residents’ reactions overwhelm me —Shittu

 
OYO State ministerial nominee, Mr Adebayo Shittu has described the reactions of the residents of the state to the announcement of his name as a ministerial nominee as overwhelming, saying the purported plot against him by some party chieftains as inconsequential.

Shittu’s name was rumoured to be among 21 names contained in the list submitted to the Senate President by President Muhammadu Buhari, last week by the media.


But two advertorials in national newspapers advertorial on Monday, signed by the state chairman and secretary of his party, All Progressives Congress (APC), Akin Oke and Mojeed Oloye respectively, rejecting the nomination.

In a reaction, Shittu, described the position of the party chieftains as misleading and against the interest of the larger majority of the residents of the state.

The ministerial nominee, who was a governorship aspirant of the APC in the last general election in the state maintained that all what the party officials made reference to in the open letter were intra-party squabbles, some of which Mr President himself, Buhari intervened to get them resolved.

Describing his nomination as one of the best things that could happen to Oyo State, he said this was the first time a thorough-bred and grassroots politician would be nominated to represent the state, as against the previous arrangement when those appointed had no grassroots appeal.

He even challenged the party officials to produce the results of the last elections in their wards and local governments and put them side by side what he was able to turn-in from his Saki-West Local Government Area of the state, which produced one of the best results for the party.

The protest notwithstanding, he said he had no ill-feeling against anybody, because, “as a man of God, though I’m not a professional cleric, but I’m religious enough to appreciate that when God elevates, nobody can demote and that’s why I’m not moved.”

Also, Shittu stated that those speaking against his ministerial nomination in the state should be ignored, as a fight against him is a fight against God.

Shittu said “I ordinarily would not have made a comment on the advertorial where my character was disparaged and I was supposedly rejected as a nominee, because I was still in a meeting with the executive governor, the chairman of the APC in Oyo State, Chief Oke and two of the senators four days ago, where we all explained our positions and agreed that we would start afresh. I was invited by some elders in the state on Sunday, who again organised a meeting between myself and the governor, and there, we agreed that we would put the past behind us.”