The National Executive Committee of the Unity Party of Nigeria has dismissed the purported suspension of its gubernatorial candidate in Ogun State, Prince Rotimi Paseda; the Chairman of the caretaker committee in the state, Chief Adesoye Oyenuga; and 12 others by any disciplinary committee for alleged anti-party activities.
The National Organizing Secretary of the party, Dr. Ola Olateju, who disclosed thison Friday, pointed out that the party has not set up any disciplinary committee in Ogun State or any state of the federation.
One Olusegun Olukoya, who claimed to be the Chairman of the disciplinary committeem had told newsmen in Abeokuta, the capital of Ogun State, on Thursdaythat the 14 party stalwarts were suspended for “wilfully” ignoring invitations earlier sent to them to appear and defend allegations of anti-party activities leveled against them.
Olukoya listed those affected as Adesoye Oyenuga, Rotimi Paseda, Dele Oyetoro, Samuel Adeogun and Adeogun Olurin.
Others include Akeem Agboke, Bukola Oloniyo, Femi Ashafa, Wale Dina, Femi Otanbala, Olusola Oyapidan, Junaid, Ebenezer Orebiyi and Jide Taiwo.
While however reacting to the development on Friday, Dr. Olateju said: “The purported Olusegun Olukoya who claimed to be the chairman of the so called disciplinary committee in Ogun State is more known in his community as a frustrated person that peddles mischief and disharmony in the community than being a member of any political party.
“He only works for those that provide him with hand to mouth subsistence.
“Reports from his community show that he constantly suffers from the hallucination of his unsuccessful sojourn in the United Kingdom and his ‘yet to break through’ status in Nigeria which might have led to his imagination of seeing himself as the chairman of a non-existing committee’.
“Though he is a clown, but he needs an urgent deliverance from darkness, mental derailment and ignorance.
“More laughable is the fact that Adesoye Oyenuga, the first name among those this impostor and those he is working for claimed to have suspended, is the chairman of the caretaker committee for Ogun State as appointed at our last NEC meeting in Abuja.
“The second person on the list, Prince Rotimi Paseda, is our gubernatorial candidate for Ogun State as recommended to the national body by the Ogun State Executive Committee and approved.”
“He is going to be endorsed very soon by the Congress in Ogun State.”
Advising the general public to ignore the purported suspension, Dr. Olateju added: “Those behind it have exposed themselves as agents of darkness and destabilization who want to sell the UPN to their paid masters for a pot of porridge.
“They are jittery of the rising profile of the UPN as an agent of positive change in Nigeria’s parlous political setting and they want to abort it in favour of the status quo under which they eat from the crumbs that fall from the tables of their masters. “We will not allow that to happen. UPN as a mass movement is an idea whose time has come and you cannot stop or abort an idea whose time has come.”