Daily Independent Online.
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Monday,July 19, 2004.
Tinubu, Ogunleye
rift to end soon, says OPC
By Sunny Igboanugo
Metro
Editor
If the assurance given by factional leader
of Oodua Peoples Congress, (OPC) Chief Ganiyu Adams is anything to go by, the
protracted rift between Lagos State Governor Ahmed Bola Tinubu and the Minister
of Works, Senator Adeseye Ogunlewe may soon be a thing of the past.
Adams, leader of the militant group told Daily
Independent that his organisation had waded into the crisis and would
soon secure an amicable settlement between the two top politicians, whose
contest over who should be in control of affairs at the federal roads in the
state has been interpreted as a power play to determine who is in charge in the
state politically.
The troubleshooting efforts according to
the OPC leader is therefore to try and rein in the ambition of both
personalities to prevent the contest from going too far to a stage where it
would deal a devastating blow to the overall interest of the Yoruba people.
“I have been having chats with the
governor. I am also close to the Honourable Minister. The way Nigerians play
politics is different from the Western world that gave us this democracy. But
notwithstanding, the interest of Yoruba is very paramount more than any power.
The issue is that there are a lot of things on ground that has to be resolved.
We have to call these two leaders and talk to them separately so that they
should know the consequence of fighting against themselves in Lagos state.
“Lagos is a cosmopolitan. Any problem
that affects Lagos state will affect the whole Nigeria. By and large I think
everything will be under control as soon as possible”, he said.
He declined to state what he discovered to
be the source of the rift arguing that such a revelation being made open could
harm the peace efforts. “If I tell you my own investigation I will not be
a peacemaker between the two of them. If you want me to be a peacemaker,
don’t let me say anything about my investigation. It is better I reveal
my investigation to the two of them rather than saying it on the pages of
newspaper.
“Definitely I am very close to the
two of them. We are trying our possible best. But I can assure you that
everything will be resolved at the end of the day.
Acknowledging that the crisis was actually
going down already, he said if things continued the way they were going, and
those instigating it could equally be checked the problem would end within two
to three months.
He also condemned
the continued withdrawal of the allocations for local governments in Lagos
state by the federal government saying it amounted to punishing innocent
workers in the state adding that if the federal government was against the
creation of additional councils in the state, it would not prevent it from
releasing the money for the payment of the workers, which was just “a
token money”.
