N50m feud rocks City Boy Movement

N50m feud rocks Oyo City Boy Movement

A leadership crisis has engulfed the Oyo State chapter of the City Boy Movement following the suspension of two state executive members over alleged anti-party activities, with subsequent allegations of embezzlement of mobilisation funds further deepening divisions within the group.

The suspended officials are the Director of Programmes, Adetoyese Ishola, and the Assistant Secretary, Abiola Oyeyemi.

The controversy has also seen the movement’s former Legal Adviser, Yejide Esan, resign from her position, citing a lack of trust in the leadership and disagreements over its decision-making process.

The organisation, launched across the country, emerged in 2022 as a political support group formed to mobilise support for President Bola Tinubu ahead of the 2023 general elections.

The youth-focused group was established as a grassroots mobilisation platform and has since expanded its activities beyond electioneering to promoting the Tinubu administration’s Renewed Hope Agenda, with Seyi Tinubu, the President’s son, as its patron.

The suspension of the two officials reportedly came before the controversy surrounding funds allegedly released by Seyi for the movement’s mobilisation activities in Oyo State.

However, following their suspension, allegations emerged that the state leadership had mismanaged or diverted part of the money reportedly released for the group’s activities.

While some members have questioned how the funds were spent, the state executive has dismissed the claims, insisting that the money was used for mobilisation.

Speaking with Sunday PUNCH, Oyeyemi alleged that the leadership’s actions against him and Ishola were unjustified.

Oyeyemi
He said, “Maybe it was because they wanted to embezzle the money that was why they suspended us. I heard that he hosted all the local government coordinators and gave them N1m each out of N100m.”

Oyeyemi, however, denied allegations that he engaged in anti-party activities, saying his association with people in other political camps was being misinterpreted by the movement’s leadership.

He explained that he had encountered a friend of 25 years who worked with the governorship candidate of the Allied Peoples Movement, Bimbo Adekanbi, at a restaurant and introduced him to the movement’s state director, Olufemi Onireti.

Onireti
According to him, the encounter was subsequently presented as evidence that he had defected to the APM.

He said, “All of them in the City Boy Movement in Oyo State are doing anti-party. We met at a restaurant, and one of my friends of 25 years is working with Bimbo Adekanbi. I introduced my friend to Olufemi Onireti, the state Director. Later, he told people that he saw me with APM members and said I had decamped to APM.

“How would I say that because my friend is in APM, I would not greet him? Eighty per cent of them are doing anti-party, except if they don’t have friends in other parties.”

The former legal adviser, Esan, also linked her resignation to what she described as concerns about the leadership’s decision-making process.

Esan said she did not trust the leadership and was uncomfortable with decisions being taken without following what she considered the proper procedures.

Esan
She said, “I resigned because I did not trust the particular leadership. I don’t like where things are not done properly. There is a procedure by which things should be done. If you want to suspend anybody, you don’t just write a letter and make a unilateral decision.

“There are different directors that should meet to make decisions, and that was why I left.”

Although she said she had heard rumours about the alleged mismanagement of funds, Esan did not establish that money had been embezzled.

She, however, said the controversy was connected to the concerns that informed her departure.

In an earlier Facebook post, she had accused unnamed individuals of embezzlement, writing in Yoruba, “You have the effrontery to have the mind to embezzle and you no inform awa Iya? As you dey embezzle, dey keep awa iya own, your mind no tell you that one make e no cast? Ki lo gboju le?”

A deputy coordinator of a local government chapter in the state, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of intimidation, narrated how the money was received and spent.

The source claimed that the state coordinator travelled to Abuja and received N50m from Seyi as mobilisation funds before convening a meeting with the 33 local government coordinators in Ibadan.

“When he came back to Ibadan, he organised a meeting with all the local government coordinators and gave each one of them N1m, which amounted to N33m from the money,” the source said.

The deputy coordinator further disclosed that the state director organised a dinner for the local government officials and paid for their hotel accommodation, bringing the total expenditure to almost N40m.

But a member of the state executive, Wale Oriade, denied that there was any embezzlement, describing the allegations as an attempt by aggrieved members to discredit the leadership.

Oriade said the affected members were removed because of alleged anti-party activities, insisting that they had declared support for the All Progressives Congress at the national level while working for the APM in Oyo State.

He said, “There is nothing like embezzlement in the City Boy Movement, Oyo State. Some people were aggrieved because they were expelled from the movement due to the anti-party activities they were doing. They claimed that they were in APC and they wanted to work for APM at the state and Tinubu at the federal level. I was there.”

He added that 28 members had signed the decision to expel the affected officials.

Addressing the funds, Oriade said the state leadership was initially informed that it would receive a Hilux vehicle and N100m to strengthen its mobilisation activities.

However, he said only N50m was eventually transferred.

He said the coordinator decided to spend N40m on the 33 local government coordinators, including N1m each for mobilisation and the cost of accommodation.

According to him, the state coordinator had spent millions of naira of his personal money on the movement before the funds were released.

He said, “He has been spending his money running into several millions so that they can recognise Oyo State City Boy. As of September 7, City Boy Oyo State was number 33 in membership registration ranking, but as we speak, we are number six.”

He also claimed that the coordinator had received 14 vehicles and distributed all of them rather than keeping any for himself.