It was an embarrassing situation for the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) on Friday as its members in Ogun State took on one another in a free-for-all. Though there was no major casualties, it was learnt that several members sustained various degrees of injury in the battle for supremacy between former Governor Olusegun Osoba and the current governor of the state, Senator Ibikunle Amosun.
The two prominent members of the party had been on each other’s throats since the issue of choice candidates for the local government began several months ago. This further polarised the state House of Assembly with some of the members showing allegiance to Osoba and others loyal to the governor.
This time, the fight resulted at the Ward 15, Ibara, Abeokuta venue of the re-validation exercise for the party members. Crisis began when members of the Amosun faction insisted that they must be registered first thus breaching the order with which the membership register should follow. The exercise, which started on Thursday, was supposed to be completed in six days.
It was learnt that most of the members of the Amosun faction were those who had defected to the party. Ordinarily, according to a party member who spoke with Huhuonline.com, they should have waited for the registration of older members who are already on the list before they would be considered.
Every effort to make them understand the situation proved abortive as the affected members became violent and started beating members of the Osoba faction who in-turn retaliated resulting in several injuries.
“We told them that their names cannot be the ones to be considered first because they came in when others had fought the battle to keep the party strong in the state.
“But their stand was based on the fact that the one they are loyal to is the governor and therefore they must be given special consideration which was not possible,” a member of the Osoba group said adding that the members of the faction had gone ahead to print fake membership cards so as to achieve their goal. “But we soon discovered they were not registered fully and so were suppose to wait to be considered last,” he added.
While the fight was on-going, the members loyal to Amosun allegedly stole the registered and disappeared thereby cutting short the exercise. The police had to come in but they are yet to recover the register.
“Without the register, much cannot be done. So we must wait for the register to be recovered,” the top party chief said.
Speaking with journalists later, the ward chairman, Nofiu Osayemi, said the exercise was smooth at the beginning. However, at about 10.25, just hours after commencement, the Amosun faction struck.
He confirmed that the members came with fake membership cards which was discovered.
He said the members insisted that their names should be in the first set of the register but the party denied them the opportunity “because as new entrants to the party, the party leadership has instructed that their names should be in the supplementary list.”
While confirming that the factional members beat up other members at the venue when the realised that their mission had failed, Mr. Osayemi, who sustained injury from the attack, said the police had taken charge.
Another member of the party, Tunji Fagbenro, who also sustained injuries confirmed that the members who attacked party members at the registration venue were part of the Amosun faction adding that they joined the party not long ago.
