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The 2023 governorship candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, Ladi Adebutu, has said the conduct of Ogun State’s local government election was a mockery of democracy.
Adebutu alleged that the ruling party intimidated and threatened its residents during the election.
DAILY POST reported that on Sunday, the chairman of the State Independent Electoral Commission, OGSIEC, Babatunde Osibodu, declared the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC, winner of all 20 local government areas and 236 wards in the state.
Adebutu, on Monday, in a press conference held in Abeokuta, disclosed that despite paying all required fees to OGSIEC, the election was ugly and filled with violence and intimidation against PDP leaders and supporters.
He also accused Governor Dapo Abiodun and his administration of harassment and assault, saying the president’s administration is “trampling on democracy.”
He said: ” The OGISIEC, supposedly supported by our taxes, was unleashed against us. Ironically, PDP were the only party that paid all the fees that they illegally requested us to pay. We paid because we did not want any reason to be disqualified. We actually paid. In essence, we paid the ransom. After taking that ransom from us, they deployed against us.
” This is democracy trampled upon. Of the 5,042 polling units of Ogun State, in over 4000 of those polling units, OGISIEC did not turn up. In less than the 1000 that they turned up, what they did was that wherever they noticed that it appeared that the voting was not going in favour of APC, they’d rather stop the voting.
” In some cases, they actually brought out canes and were caning people saying”if you’re not going to vote APC, go o home.” They sorted the ballots already cast and tore ballots cast in favour of other parties. What a shame! As if that was not enough, they went after all known leaders of the PDP, individually, local government by local government and attacked them.”
Also speaking, the party’s chairman, Abayomi Tella, maintained that no election was held in the state, saying what the state witnessed was a sham.
Tella lamented that OGSIEC promised a free and fair election but did otherwise.
According to him: “First and foremost, I want to say, particularly, that there was no election on Saturday. What we had was a sham. This is Ogun State, where we have Ransom Kuti, former president Olusegun Obasanjo and others who are well respected across the globe. It’s quite unfortunate that we find ourselves with this kind of leadership in the state.
“The worst-case scenario is where you have them bringing election materials to the polling centre and they will declare 50 for local chairman, 50 for councillorship ballot papers and when you get to the polling units, it becomes 25 or 20; where is the rest? Where we have such cases the people insisted they were not going to vote but yet winners were announced.”
Reacting to the Ogun State Government through the Special Adviser to the Governor on Media and Strategy, Kayode Akinmade, noted that the state has not witnessed any political violence since Abiodun assumed office, saying it is a testament to his peaceful mien.
He accused Adebutu of political thuggery, adding that contrary to the electoral act, he illegally brought in 40 policemen from MOPOL 49 in Lagos and, along with PDP thugs on Okada who went about with guns, cutlasses and other dangerous weapons, attempting to snatch ballot boxes.
He said: “This individual is trying to assume the role of the Chief Security Officer of Ogun State and that is impossible. It is in his own interest to cooperate with law enforcement officers by turning himself in, rather than trying to exonerate himself from the mayhem unleashed on the peace-loving residents of Iperu on Saturday.
“It is laughable that someone whose political journey is on a downward spiral is alleging that voting did not take place in some polling booths in the state when in actual fact the majority of Ogun residents trooped out in their numbers to exercise their electoral franchise.
“As a professional clown whose own running mate said he would have been a disaster as governor, Adebutu spun wicked lies like the current one during his case at the election petitions tribunal and right up to the Supreme Court, where he was brutally bludgeoned for his egregious falsehoods.”
Akinmade, however, advised Adebutu to turn himself in to law enforcement agents to clarify why he brought in illegal policemen to aid his rigging machine.
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