A Former Commissioner for Finance in Osun State and a supporter of Mr Rauf Aregbesola, Dr Wale Bolorunduro, on Wednesday, defected to the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).
The APC chieftain who made the announcement of his resignation in a press conference in Osogbo said, having made wide consultations with his supporters, friends, admirers and family who felt the best option for him was to shine the light, they opted for the PDP.
Dr Wale Bolorunduro will join forces with the Newly Elected Governor, Senator Ademola Nurudeen Jackson Adeleke of PDP.
His statement below;
Resignation of APC Party Membership
Gentlemen of the Press, thank you for honoring our invitation at short notice.
Today, I hereby resign the membership of the All Progressive Congress (APC) after eleven (11) years of active partisanship in the party. While my deportment, in August 2011 to ACN and APC (now) was by fate, I remain mortally grateful to Aregbesola for that singular act. I had used the opportunity to serve my state diligently and with the whole of my heart.
As a top management staff of the current biggest bank in Nigeria, I had used my contacts in the industry to raise funds to modernize my state. The sheer quantum of funds mobilized is a testament for creative financing and talent imbued by God on Osun citizens, who supported us during the capital raising. This couldn’t have been made possible, if assets were not created such as Omoluabi Conservation Fund, Recapitalization of Omoluabi Savings & Loan, etc to serve as buffer and sweeteners for the infrastructure financing. Unfortunate, many of these assets have been sold by subsequent administration. Also, the increase in Internally Generated Revenue, also served as a shot in the arm to enhance capacity and sustainability of debt finance.
Today, Osun is now in the league of state with modernized capital at Osogbo and with internally Generated Revenue of about 20billion naira annually. I had also used my relationship with the Governor of Central Bank (my former boss) to facilitate a 2b naira revolving fund for micro, small and medium farmers, traders and artisan without issuing an ISPO, for any monthly deduction from FAAC, a feat that had never been achieved before, by any state.
At the local level, I had used the opportunities to serve the people of Oriade and Obokun Federal constituency facilitating many developmental projects to the towns and communities.
At personal level, I had used my Foundation, created in 2007, to alleviate poverty and to support the widows and orphans. I have had to also learn the rudiments of “politicking” at grassroots and twice I chaired the federal constituency Campaign Committee of APC, touring all the nooks and crannies of my constituency, while working hard with many others at state level to sustain the winning streaks of 2014 and 2015, for APC in my federal constituency.
In the 2014 election, 9 wards out of 12 wards were won by APC, unlike 2007, when only 3 wards were won by AC (legacy party of APC) in Oriade Local Government (my local government). I remain grateful to our stalwarts, followers and our people.
During the eleven (11) year period, I have had to assess the APC party against my expectations of the political ethos of our, Avatar, Chief Obafemi Awolowo, who would ever remain my political hero. His free education program of 1979, his biographies, his autobiography and stories from my father, a previous zikist, who left Zik movement to join Awolowo in Ibadan in the early fifty’s, have made me to fall in love with welfarism and progressivism. My expectation from Utilitarian view is that the most ethical choice, no matter how difficult it is, should be the one that produces the greatest good for the greatest number, and I can say to a large extent, this had been met in Osun despite the meagre revenues, under the administration that I served (between 2011 and 2014). Unfortunately, this can not be said to have been met by many other APC-led states with humongous revenues. Likewise, the recent reckless abandonment of the developmental projects by the Administration that succeeded Aregbesola, the outgoing APC administration in Osun lends credence to the doubt, some people have on the sincerity of the progressive tendency.
I had thought a consensus had been reached on what we needed to do in Osun by the topmost leadership of our party (including our national leader) before my engagement in 2011. I was interviewed twice for the job of commissioner of finance, Osun and in Ashiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s house at Ikoyi Lagos.
The summary of my presentation and performance during the interviews were made available to Ashiwaju, Rauf Aregbesola and myself by Sam Omatseye (a very senior editor of The Nation newspaper, who conducted the second interview). I was given a clean bill on the professed ideologies, congruence of goals and understanding of the vision of the party. After completing the first term, around December 2014, Aregbesola took me to Tinubu again for review of Osun Finance and to chart a way forward, another clean bill was issued by Ashiwaju himself and the financial options were agreed upon to navigate the economic headwind occasioned by the significant drop in the price of crude oil, while we were in the midst of leverage finance of infrastructures. That someone would deny this catalogue of events is unthinkable and a lesson in “followership”. Yes, leaders pick their team/followers, followers should also pick their leaders.
I resumed my job in August, 2011 to inherit a portfolio, previously managed by some “characters”, who had been in Aregbesola’s administration for the previous eight(8) months and who had their own preferred candidate in mind. When we were interviewed, it was glaring to the panel of Wale Edun, Sola Adeeyo and Rauf Aregbesola that I was a better choice, though I didn’t sound desperate. The die was cast in many instances. An omnibus internal approval was in place for capital market (bond issuance) offering of 50billion Naira. Also, a 25billion naira medium term facility from First Bank Plc was on the table and one-third already drawn. As much as I didn’t like the structure of the First Bank loan, I had no choice than to “thinker” with it only. A booby trap of some kind by these “characters”, if I had allowed moratorium to end and for repayment to commence, the cashflow would suffer and I would have been facing a moving train with a Governor, whose appetite for developmental projects was huge and who needed cash badly.
Then, Governor Aregbesola wanted to please the masses through empowerment, good infrastructures. He wanted to satisfy workers and correct the political baggage of his party, notorious, previously, for not being labour friendly. Governor Aregbesola wanted to do stakeholders patronage to rally his political base. No doubt, I had my job well cut out for me. With excruciating pains, I had to learn how to work and manage these “characters”. Honestly, you dare not manage them, even Governor Aregbesola, himself had had to beg them severally, in my presence, to get things done. They never nudge Governor Aregbesola that he was doing too much. That he doesn’t listen? No. They should tell it to the marine because they could escalate it to the national leadership, who he had almost a servitude relationship with. They were better placed with the national leadership than Aregbesola, and they were using that advantage to their personal benefits, anyway. I knew it wouldn’t last too long but I made up my mind not to leave Governor Aregbesola, until he won his re-election bid because his first win was through court process.
I worked with many other party leaders and men to ensure 2014 victory for the APC. Twice, I survived guns pointed at my head, one in Delta and one in my federal constituency. The election was won despite the federal mights used against us. I thought I was done with public life. Subsequently, and after the 2014 election, at the instance of Ashiwaju, who prompted Jim Ovia to still prevail on me to stay back, I worked as the personal assistant on finance (a pro bono service to Aregbesola) to restructure the loan portfolio and to process the Paris Club Refund among other refunds (some are still outstanding). Once, the Paris club refund (the windfall) was approved in December 2016, the music changed again and for my dear life, I have to move on with my life. The rest is history! It will be interesting to ask, who administered that Paris club refund with Aregbesola?
That the same characters, who excluded me from the Labour-Government Committee in June 2015 by convincing Aregbesola that I was too sympathetic to labour, to now turn the salary issue and salary apportionment, (which they recommended) to an albatross for Ogbeni is unbelievable. When, it was their turn, we saw how they treated labour. No wonder, the Bible says the heart of a man is wicked and desperately so, who can foretell it. I have resisted the emissary sent to me, to look the other way, when they stripped off Aregbesola and continued to defame him on projects and programs that they were jointly and severally responsible for. I among very few others, resisted them and my resistance was based on moral value and disposition that truth must always prevail over fiction. After the 2022 Gubernatorial election, the recent vituperations and venoms, including spells, coming out of the party men, (who worked with the current Governor) have exposed the underbelly of the party in Osun and what to come.
While I remain truthful to my values, it’s like the APC party at the Osun state level has gone beyond salvage with deceit, injustice, lack of fairness, unhealthy/needless rivalry and poor reward system that are aliens to what Awolowo stood for. There is a mortal departure from the old time progressive ideologies culminating in a loss of election by the incumbent APC governor, who was the Governor- in-waiting, during the eight year of the Administration of Aregbesola. My people in Oriade and Obokun Federal Constituemcy, the old time beacon of Awolowo’s progressivism in ijesa land have responded in the last governorship election through their votes in the two local governments and seriously, by their about fifty-five thousand (55,000) votes. I need no other proof of the clarion call of my people to align with their aspiration without changing my values, which I hold sacrosanct. The progress of the 2014 election had been reversed in my local government (Oriade) with APC loosing 9 wards out of 12 wards; exact opposite of what we had, when we started retrieving the popularity of APC Oriade in 2011, from PDP. Such is he fate of the APC party in many other local governments in Osun, now.
All politics is local and It is normal in any political clime that when, a councillor, the junior most government functionary leaves his position, he will have a saying in his ward (as part of the ward leadership caucus) on, who becomes next councillor and ward party executive. In APC, Osun, it was a complete aberration; as a former commissioner in a ward, who is yet to produce another, subsequent state officer, I don’t have a saying in the party exco at ward and LG levels?. Who does that? Likewise many party stalwarts. They took the party to the valley of shadow of shame, but some of us decided to fly to the TOP. Yes, they made bones and may God bless their little souls. The only option, is to disown the man, who led us to the party (in the first instance) and to join their Lordship, within the same party. This is morally bankrupt and “conscienceless” for me.
Having served at the highest statutory level of the state, as the former comissioner of finance, it is no longer my wish to offer myself for state cabinet position in any administration of the state, so let no one make a mistake or an insinuation about my current compulsion to resign my membership of APC and to join the People Democratic Party (PDP). I have been in APC for eight years (after I left office) without any patronage, benefits or appointment, yet I worked for the party in the 2015 and 2019 federal election. I can survive outside government and very well too. My records are there in Zenith Bank, where I pioneered different financing groups (upstream oil and gas, Telecom, power sector, infrastructure group) at different times, when God allowed me to conquer one front after the other. My Adrenalin is usually fired by the new challenge.
I have consulted wisely and widely with my followers, admirers, friends and families, who felt we should pitch our tent with PDP, to join this party and to work with them to shine the light (Imole Osun). We would have done this before the 2022 Gubernatorial election, but knowing “them” it was better “to err on the side of caution”, for us to have Today, Tomorrow and future.
Thank you very much.
Dr Wale Bolorunduro, PhD
Ward 4 Oriade Local Government
Osun State
