Oluseye Ojo, Ibadan
The All Progressives Congress (APC) in Oyo State has lost six chieftains within the past six weeks, including the immediate past governor of the state, Senator Abiola Ajimobi, who breathed his last on Thursday June 25, 2020 as a result of COVID-19 complications and was buried on Sunday June 28, 2020, in Ibadan.
The latest of all the deaths occurred on Friday July 10, 2020 at Shagamu, along Lagos-Ibadan Expressway to a former Commissioner for Natural Resources, Fatai Abimbola, as a result of road accident.
Daily Sun gathered that a former state chairman of the party, Pa Samuel Farinu, and chairman of APC in Oyo central senatorial district, Chief Solomon Akindele, also died in June, this year.
An elder statesman and one of the foremost political leaders in Oke-Ogun zone of the state, Pa Salaudeen Adelere, who was a councillor and later a member of Oyo State House of Assembly during the regime of late Governor Bola Ige between 1979 and 1983, also died at the age of 90 in June, this year.
The deceased commissioner for natural resources, who served during the first term of Ajimobi between 2011 and 2015, was a commissioner at a time when Senator Abdul-fatai Buhari, representing Oyo Central in the National Assembly, was the Commissioner for Local Government and Chieftaincy Matters.
It was also the same time when Prince Gbade Lana son of former Olubadan of Ibadanland, Oba Samuel Odulana Odugade I, was Commissioner for Information and Orientation in the state.
The deceased ex-commissioner, who also served as Special Adviser on Natural Resources under Ajimobi, was at a time in the House of Representatives, and at a time aspired to become governor of the pace setter state on the platform APC.
The Publicity Secretary of APC in the state, Dr. Abdul-Azeez Olatunde, confirmed Abimbola’s death and said he had been buried on Saturday according to Islamic rites, adding that the party has been in a mourning mood since June because the party has lost five notable leaders in less than two months.
He described the death of late Abimbola as shocking and a great loss to the APC family, praying that God would grant his family the fortitude to bear the irreparable loss