By BASHIR ADEFAKA

Mr. Bosun Oladele, the immediate past Oyo State Commissioner for Information and Orientation, believed to have been wrongly removed from office by Governor Abiola Ajimobi, in this interview, says he won’t challenge his former boss in contest for 2015 governorship ticket of the All Progressive Congress, APC in Oyo State.  Excerpts:

On his refusal to speak on his removal from office in November 2012

Having been in politics since 1999 and what happened had happened the way it happened, ordinarily one would feel discouraged. But again, when you look at the terrain and the question is often asked: Do I want to quit?  The answer will be no.  Otherwise, you leave the terrain for charlatans that is, people who would not add value to the polity, others and to existence generally.  So, that alone is a motivating factor.  I would say that I am not out of politics but I am out of office as an appointee.

And you rightly said 2015 is already around the corner.  I know a lot of politicking is going on and in the progressive fold, to which I belong, the people of the party will decide and I mean to say that the members, leaders and executives of the party will decide.

If only one of them is trying to decide for others, then the situation may not be right.  But there is a level at which all of them come into a synergy and people will say the voice of man is the voice of God.

So, if we start having a situation where there is a clamour, then the time is due for representation.  For now, I am waiting, I am watching and I can say that I’m looking very closely at the situation.

On why the governor removed him

In all honesty, I am yet to know why I was removed from office.  Nobody has ever told me anything.

The governor has been in communication with me.  No act of indolence, accusation of non-performance, etc were alleged against me.  I was not levied with accusation of non-performance.

I want to say categorically that up till now, if you ask me what led to my removal from office, I will tell you I don’t know.

Where do you go from here?

As I said earlier on, there could be a number of options and a politician must always be careful in taking any of the options.  Whatever option he takes must be in tandem with the will of the people because it is the people that are going to decide on it.  On where I go from here, I would say that I am still consulting.

Oyo State  polity is heating up and the die appears cast between the APC and the Ladoja’s Accord Party.  But with the intra-party wrangling within your party, particularly between Governor Ajimobi and Senator Femi Lanlehin, won’t it hurt APC at the polls?

We know how long we stayed in the trenches.  We know the kind of opposition we confronted and we know the kind of might behind them at that time in 2011.

But as we proceed now, we know we have one solid house but the enemies would always want to create divisions.

I know there will always be disagreement here and there. I know that the disagreement we are having now is based on principle and it is nothing personal.

You are talking of Senator Lanlehin and Governor Ajimobi.  These are matured leaders and at that level, don’t forget that in the progressive, we have ways of resolving issues.

Apart from the leaders we have at the state level, senator s and the governor, we also have national leaders and I want to believe that at the end of the day, we would come out of this stronger and then ride to election and win.

On whether the wrangling between the governor and the senator was because of misplaced rights, I would not say yes.  True, there were many of them aspiring for the ticket and Senator Lanlehin was one; Senator Ajimobi was one of them and others.

It could have been any of them because all the aspirants were qualified to be governor.  But the leadership of the party both at the state and national levels saw in their own wisdom the need to have a consensus.

That was what led to the emergence of the present governor.  And after the candidate  emerged, everybody rallied round and worked for his success and we succeeded.

And I believe that a lot of people also got what I could call palliative positions because the governorship itself is just one position and it is only one person that can occupy it.

Today it is the present governor that is there and tomorrow it could be another person.

On PDP’s comments that if APC picked General Buhari, that the PDP would floor it at the presidential election

It is not the place of PDP to start shopping for presidential candidate for APC.  Because, if a party has been able to surmount every obstacle that the presidency and the PDP had put in its way to get registered, then, that party is capable of picking a presidential candidate that will be generally acceptable to the change-loving people of Nigeria.  That is the bottom line and that is where the presidency and the PDP are catching cold.