A Senior Advocate of Nigeria,foundational member of the ruling party, All Progressive Congress (APC) as well as the guber aspirant under APC, Chief Adeniyi Akintola has ascribed the party's loss at the Ibarapa East Constituency bye-election to the clannish itch between the two conflicting towns in Ibarapa East.

He revealed this on Monday during an exclusive interview with CEOAFRICA at his residence in Agodi, Ibadan.

Chief Akintola opined that there were 140 polling units in the constituency of which Eruwa had 86 and Lanlate had 54. “We saw it coming, there is nothing new about that, Politics is a game of number and we were in a situation whereby a town pitched its tent against the other town. There are 140 polling units in the constituency and Eruwa had 86 while Lanlate had 54. We picked our candidate from the minority group and I would not call that a mistake. We did what an “OMOLUABI” should do to show sympathy for the people of Lanlate who just lost an icon, a speaker, their own son and we couldn’t just take it away from them.”

Also, Chief Adeniyi said the election was sentimental because the winner happened to be a son of an Ibarapa hero while the mother is a seasoned politician.

“The winner happened to be the son of an Eruwa hero in fact an Ibarapa hero, Chief Adeseun Ogundoyin who was an icon in his lifetime. As a matter of fact, his influence expanded to Ibadan. He was a very popular man, a Philanthropist who has brought so many developments to Ibarapa land and his son was contesting, whereas the mother of the winner, Chief Mrs. Tina Ogundoyin is a seasoned Politician so we were hitting our head against a stone wall but we did the needful just to compensate the people of Lanlate”

However, He criticized the state of things in Ibarapa Constituency explaining that the election was based on clan. “The election was based on clan; Adebo Ogundoyin won in his own town while our candidate also did in Lanlate, so it was an equation of Eruwa sticking to their gun and vice versa. It is not what PDP should rejoice about and APC should not grieve too, it should be a major concern for all. It was basically a majority tyranny and there is no way a minority will get to power if the majority does not support the minority aspiration. I was at the campaign where Governor Ajimobi urged the two towns to allow the APC candidate finish the tenure which is less than a year and then, Eruwa will take over afterwards but on that day, there were posters with incitement like “Eruwa e roonu” and all that. It is good for majority to win but minority should also have a say.”