Oyo 2027: You Have My Full Support – Folarin backs Sharafadeen Alli

Senator Teslim Folarin has endorsed the All Progressives Congress (APC) governorship candidate in Oyo State, Senator Sharafadeen Alli.

He pledged his support during Alli’s visit to him in Ibadan on Monday.

Folarin, who was among party leaders considered to be aggrieved, assured Alli and his team that there he had moved on, adding that other previously aggrieved leaders would join hands to deliver President Bola Tinubu, Alli and other Oyo APC candidates in the 2027 general elections.

Addressing Alli and the crowd of supporters in the Yoruba language, he said, “I greet all of you. I won’t make a political statement here now but will talk with you deeply. Only a bastard will be wronged and will not be angry. In the same way, only a bastard will reject apologies from those who wronged him. 

“In our own approach, we won’t stand here and tell you there is no problem. There is a big problem, and what caused the problem? Some people don’t understand. As I am, I’ve invested 26 years of my life in the ambition to be a governor. If you now hold me down and say I shouldn’t be angry, that will be unrealistic. But if I see people – others that have not invested much – getting angry, I will ask them what they have invested to warrant that. People that are angry must be begged. And we must appeal to them.

“I want to salute my elder brothers, Senator Femi Lanlehin and Prof. Taoheed Adedoja, who are handling this reconciliation. But if they ask me to score them, I will grade them 20 per cent. The reason is that 80 per cent of persons that should agree to the resolution will not agree until people like us agree. But we are looking at it, and time is going. And we felt, should we allow things to be completely destroyed?

“What do we stand to gain if we allow things to collapse totally? May God preserve Engr Idris and all he has. He did a lot to get us to where we are here today. Remember four of us had a meeting at Iyaganku-myself, Bayo, Buhari and Olaniyan. We want to hold a similar meeting here (at his residence), during which we would agree not to allow reconciliation to succeed. I was abroad; he was the one that sponsored the trip with the aim that if we are not at home, the meeting will not hold.

“Idris asked me to stay abroad. When I called him and said I was tired of staying abroad, he said I should go to Mecca… We thank him very much. He is angry as well, but if we look at how annoyed he is, he is thinking about tomorrow. You know we have to think about tomorrow. We don’t know what will happen tomorrow. I want to appeal to you; from today, we are going straight to Agodi. You will notice that President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has appointed me as Coordinator of Oyo State. He didn’t ask me to deliver President Bola Ahmed Tinubu only. It is all the candidates. As I was saying, politics has started today. There is no way we’ll do it; we will still beg some people, and they won’t agree. The way it will work in one person’s system will differ from the other person’s. It is not compulsory to be friends! Just be a member of the party with us. The advantage I have is that I know all the aggrieved parties in all the councils. When I am angry myself, how will I not know the people who belong to the same club?

“I plead with you all. Sometimes it is like that. Sometimes in business, you lose; sometimes, you gain. The votes we gave Asiwaju Tinubu in 2023, we must improve on this time around. Some people are saying after we finish the presidential election, we will travel. Even if we want to travel, Idris won’t allow it. Anybody that knows us knows that if we want to do anything, we will do it. When we were at home and they didn’t give anything last time, did we die? I want to assure you, this one will be different.

I have sat down with the president. You all know my friend, Senator Buhari. He also met with the president, and we have told him everything.

“The reward system in this party, not just in Oyo State, is very bad. When we finish working, the people who did nothing are the ones who get rewarded. That will not happen again. We will not accept it.

Our candidate, Sharafadeen Alli, is a politician. It was the manner in which his candidacy emerged that made some people to be aggrieved. But if we put that aside, he is a politician. We, too, will continue to put pressure on him to ensure that you all get your rewards.

You are the traditional politicians here, and we will not allow them to discard you. The computer politicians can do their own thing, while we do ours here. We will then combine our efforts to get to Agodi Government House by 2027. By God’s grace, when we get there, you will all get your rewards.

“I appeal to you because you know I do not like to fail when I take on a responsibility. The task entrusted to me has also been entrusted to all of us.