BY TIMOTHY AGBOR, OSOGBO
The chairman of Accord Party (AP) in Osun State, Pastor Victor Akande has advocated against vote buying in the July 16 governorship election in the state, vowing that the candidate of the party, Dr Akin Ogunbiyi, would not get involved in such practice.
Akande described the threat by the governorship candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the state, Senator Ademola Adeleke, that the poll would be fire for fire as condemnable, saying the statement showed the level of intellectual capacity of the candidate.
Adeleke had reportedly threatened that the coming election would be “fire for fire”, saying he had prepared hard currencies to spend for the election.
Featuring on the News Point programme of the Correspondents’ Chapel of the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ), in Osogbo, Akande
said politics should not be a do-or-die.
He said, “it is unfortunate that election is now do or die affair. We must ensure a peaceful guber poll. We must not allow violence during the poll. The statement he (Adeleke) made revealed the level of his intellectual capacity.
“The issue of vote buying that he raised while addressing his supporters is condemnable. Things will remain the same if we don’t fight the evil called vote buying.”
Akande who promised that the gubernatorial candidate of the Accord Party would pay the backlog of pensions, said “Ogunbiyi has the intellectual, connection and capacity to turn around the economy of the state. And I want to assure you that he will never get involved in vote buying.”
He also debunked the rumour that the state governor, Adegboyega Oyetola, is using Ogunbiyi to deplete the strength of PDP, saying “if this is true, our candidate would have defected to APC instead of Accord party.”
