An aide to Governor Rauf Aregbesola who is also a
commissioner nominee who was attacked at the burial of late Senator Isiaka Adeleke
on Monday, Hon Idiat Babalola has said her attackers picked on her simply over
unfounded rumours that she wants to be Deputy Governor after the current tenure
of the governor.
Babalola, who was attacked shortly after arriving the venue of
the burial, said she sensed troublewhen some of the hoodlums started to make
utterances which suggested that her rumoured deputy governorship ambition was
to
checkmate the governorship ambition of the late Senator, who had openly
declared his intention to succeed Governor Aregbesola. Explaining further,
Babalola, who served in the last cabinet as Special Adviser to the Governor on
Federal Matters, said her attackers could not have been acting over anything
against Governor Aregbesola but simply on the local politics of Ede, where she
also hails from just as the late Senator Adeleke. “I am a proud daughter of Ede
and Uncle Isiaka has been a mentor and we never had any disagreement till the
news of his death was broken to me while in Lagos on Sunday morning I was
heartbroken and immediately cut all my other engagements and came down to Ede
from Lagos. “We worked together with Uncle for the re-election of Governor
Aregbesola in 2014 and for his own election into the Senate in 2015. “Those who
masterminded the attacks on me are people with poor understanding of the
relationship between us and who acted based on their own political permutations
only,” Babalola said. She explained that she was at the burial in company with
her father, Chief SOB Babalola, a prominent industrialist who is also a friend
to the later father of now late Senator Adeleke. “Not long after we sat down
for the prayers, I sensed some hoodlums saying some things like I wanted to be
deputy governor while Uncle (Senator Adeleke) has declared his ambition to be
governor from the same Ede. I heard them talking about the new caretaker
committee members being more of my loyalists than those of Senator Adeleke. And
before we knew it, they grew more daring and unruly and brought down the canopy
on the dignitaries present. It was the most unruly and irresponsible act I have
seen in our land in history,” Babalola said She said it was unfortunate that
the unruly behaviours of the miscreants robbed a prominent son of Ede, the
state burial that he deserved and which state government planned for him. “That
cannot be the best way to honour the memory of Uncle Adeleke. Senator Adeleke
was a man of his people; a lover of peace and a political associate of Governor
Aregbesola. Senator Adeleke could not have countenanced such misconduct in his
lifetime,” she added. She said there is no reason for the people of Ede, in
spite of their political differences, to have any misgiving against Aregbesola
saying that the city has benefitted immensely under the Aregbesola
administration. She said with Ede being a beneficiary of the some of the best
schools, roads, industrialisation youth employment and others, the city owes
the administration appreciation. Babalola expressed appreciation to Governor of
Ogun State, Ibikunle Amosun, whom she said dropped the honour of being a
governor to practically engage the hoodlums not to carry out their more
dastardly plots.
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