The All Progressives Congress (APC) in Ogun state has described as “day dreaming and wishful thinking,” the remarks credited to the National Organising Secretary of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Umar Bature, that his party will win its case at the Ogun Governorship Election Petition Tribunal, currently sitting in Abeokuta.
Bature, while addressing a recent meeting of PDP stakeholders in Abuja, which was boycotted by notable leaders, governors and former governors, sued for peace within the troubled party and remarked that the party will win its petitions at some state tribunals, including Ogun.
But reacting through a statement released in Abeokuta on Wednesday and signed by its State Assistant Publicity Secretary, Olusola Ogunsanya Blessed, the APC described Bature as a ” day dreamer, as he is apparently not in consonant with reality on ground.”
The APC said in the press statement: “Perhaps the national body of the PDP has not been properly briefed and has not availed itself of the available information world wide on what transpired in Ogun State during the last governorship election, where the state chapter of PDP and its defeated governorship candidate, Ladi Adebutu, threw caution to the wind by indulging in unprecedented vote buying and other financial and electoral malpractices that have not been witnessed in the history of Nigeria.
“The illegal use of preloaded 200,000 Verve ATM Cards credited with N10,000 each totaling N2 billion naira could best be described as an affront to the electoral laws and great insult to the sensibility of the vulnerable voters ” , the Statement added.
For the avoidance of doubt, the PDP’s Adebutu has shunned police invitation since he sneaked out of the country in April, claiming to be sick and that only his doctor will determine when he will return to the country, even when a recent video showed the fugitive partying away in a London night club. The video has not been denied till date. Adebutu has also failed to answer to the charges of vote buying and money laundering preferred against him by the Federal Government of Nigeria.
Our advice to the PDP Organising Secretary is to stop chasing shadows but to contact its run-away gubernatorial flagbearer in Ogun to return home and face the consequences of his electoral offence albeit his wobbly case at the election petition tribunal. We urge PDP in unequivocal terms to urge Ladi Adebutu to provide answers to the charges of electoral fraud, conspiracy, money laundering and breaches of Nigerian constitution and the Electoral Act preferred against him by the Federal Government.
“That is what is expected of a decent, law-abiding political party and not unnecessary grandstanding and self-adulation and deceit”
