Rauf Aregbesola: Minister of Interior

*Whoever feels that we offended him or her should forgive us

It was during a home coming in Osogbo that Ogbeni Rauf Aregbsola, the immediate past Minister of Interior, Rauf Aregbesola, said he is nothing without God, President Bola Tinubu and his predecessor, Muhammadu Buhari.

“I need to thank Asiwaju Bola Tinubu. It was through him that I became a commissioner in Lagos State and a two-term governor in Osun,” Aregbesola said at a welcome party organised in his honour by his loyalists in Osogbo, the Osun State capital, on Wednesday, June 7.

True, Tinubu, a former governor of Lagos State, apart from making Aregbesola Commissioner for Works and Infrastructure from 1999 to 2007, was instrumental to his emergence as governor of Osun State from 2010 to 2018. Then Buhari appointed Aregbesola the Minister of Interior from 2019 to 2023.

He said: “I come back to thank you, the people of Osun, and those who made it possible for me to progress in politics.

“I appreciate former President Muhammadu Buhari; after God, it was he that made me the minister; the assignment, which I just concluded.”

He added: “I am here today to seek restructuring of the party.

“I did not offend anybody; but whoever feels that we offended him or her should forgive us.

“In 2019, after the Supreme Court affirmed the mandate of the former governor, I called for unity in the party.

“I warned that disunity would not produce any good result. But devil did not allow those handling the party’s affairs at that time to listen.

“We seek forgiveness from those who are smearing our image, though we never offended them.

“We are here for the restructuring of the party and that is why we are begging anybody that feels that we offended him or her to forgive us.”