Osun PDP files petition against Oyetola’s election victory

PDP: police collude with APC to stop Adeleke’s petition

•Leave us out of the problem, says ruling party

The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Osun State yesterday filed a petition against the victory of the governorship candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Mr. Isiaka Adegboyega Oyetola.

PDP’s candidate in the just concluded Osun governorship election, Senator Ademola Adeleke, filed the petition at the State Election Petition Tribunal against the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and the APC.

Osun PDP Chairman Soji Adagunodo and chieftains of the party, including Niyi Owolade, submitted the petition to the tribunal at the State High Court, Osogbo, the state capital.

The opposition is challenging the declaration of Oyetola as the winner of the September 22 election and the September 27 rerun by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).

The PDP is alleging irregularities during the elections.

Adagunodo, who addressed reporters, insisted that the party and Adeleke have valid grounds to challenge the victory of the APC candidate.

According to him, the party filed the process as late as 5.30 p.m yesterday because “we have the intelligence report that some people were planning to cause violence in the state and thus prevent us from filing its petition”.

He described as diversionary the case of certificate forgery filed against Adeleke at an Abuja High Court.

Senator Adeleke, has said the case the police reportedly filed against him at an Abuja Federal High Court is to prevent him from retrieving his mandate.

In a statement on Monday by his spokesperson Olawale Rasheed, the PDP candidate said: “The police are in collusion with the All Progressives Congress (APC) in a plot to implicate me on trumped-up charges as a way of disrupting the commencement of our petitions before the Election Petition Tribunal.

“Their plan was originally to arrest me before the election so that I would not be able to effectively participate in the governorship election, but a court order and interventions stopped the evil agenda. Now that the APC know the game is up and the stolen mandate is about to be retrieved, the party, in collusion with the police, has perfected a fresh plot to distract, harass and intimidate me.

“No amount of intimidation will distract me from my undiluted determination to retrieve the stolen mandate. I will leave no stone unturned to ensure that the will of Osun people, as expressed at the last poll, is realised.

“Nigerians are aware that the so-called examination case is politically motivated. The public is aware of the many intimidation and attacks I have been subjected to before, during and now, after the election. We stand by the people and we will not surrender their mandate to anti-democratic forces.

“Let me use this medium to reassure the people of Osun State that our lawyers are on top of the situation. All necessary legal actions are being taken to stop these illegalities from standing. We are equally proceeding to begin our legal action to redress the electoral injustice of the last poll.”

But the Osun APC advised Adeleke to face his “problem squarely and stop looking for props and excuses to justify his inadequacies”.

In a statement by its spokesperson Kunle Oyatomi, the party said it did not ask the PDP governorship candidate to commit “an examination fraud”.

The statement reads: “This is a matter for the police. And we are not police prosecutors. If he has been taken to court by the police, how is that the business of the APC?

“He was the one who went to the tribunal and he has a responsibility to diligently prosecute his case at the tribunal. We cannot stop the tribunal from working, not even Ademola himself can stop the tribunal. So, it is immature, pedestrian and patently wrong for Ademola to accuse the APC and the police of conspiring to deprive him of the ability to prosecute his own case.”

“Perhaps the PDP candidate is too much engrossed in entertainment to find the time to understand how the tribunal and the court processes work. He should try and update himself to know what to do, rather than embarrass himself and his party.”