BY TIMOTHY AGBOR, OSOGBO
As the Osun State Governorship Election Petition Tribunal has adjourned for delivery of judgement on the petition against the outcome of the July 16 gubernatorial poll, the People’s Democratic Party and All Progressives Congress have traded tackles and alleged plot to compromise the judgement.
While the ruling PDP accused the major opposition APC and immediate past governor, Adegboyega Oyetola of plans to hold a secret meeting with the judges presiding over the case with the aim of bribing them to deliver the judgement in their favour, the APC denied saying PDP and Governor Ademola Adeleke were already jittery of imminent loss.
A statement issued on Tuesday by the PDP Caretaker Chairman, Adekunle Akindele, disclosed that Oyetola is struggling to schedule a secret meeting with the members of the Tribunal which may influence the outcome of the governorship tribunal in his favour, warning against “anti-democratic actions that may threaten the peace of the state.”
He said APC and Oyetola were already prowling around the tribunal judges to fix a meeting with them on Friday, this week.
Akindele said, “Information at our disposal confirms the evil plot to corrupt and hijack the Tribunal outcome. The plot has reached an advanced stage. The former Governor is running around to get the judges to agree to a meeting for this Friday. But he will not succeed because the judges will not agree to such a meeting. Panel members are men of integrity and good conscience.
“The PDP seeks to warn that 2022 is not 2018 and any attempt to tamper with the will of the people will be lawfully resisted by our people. The scam of 2018 cannot resurface in 2022 as the judiciary has assumed a new toga as a defender of democracy. Mr Oyetola is hereby advised to be prepared for another failure in his bid to corrupt the judiciary as panel members are clearly and openly not for sale”.
“The planned Friday meeting will flop as we are convinced that an empty room will be the lot of Mr. Oyetola and his gang of election deniers on Friday. The Nigerian judiciary of 2022 is populated by judges and officials who are in love with democracy, rule of law and good governance even as they are averse to haters of democracy and sadists seeking state power against the will of the people,” he further claimed.
But, in a swift reaction, Osun APC boasted that it has a strong case and said the accusations by PDP showed that the ruling party has “low reasoning and level of demonstrated administrative ineptitude.”
A statement signed by the APC Acting Chairman, Tajudeen Lawal, said it was a pity that some disgruntled elements could choose to feed the members of the public with fallacy, saying “only a poor student will be jittery at exam.”
He described Oyetola as a brilliant student who is always burning his candles at both ends before, during and after any examination and not in the league of those who wrote the NECO examinations three years before the establishment of the examination body itself.
Lawal urged members of the public to disregard the corner-cutting allegations of the PDP, describing them as absolute falsehood and figment of the imagination of those who put them together.
“Only about a month ago, the social media was awash with stories of how a contact committee was set up by the PDP to go after the tribunal justices. We hope they are not trying to accuse us of what they did only because the project failed?
“Any discerning Nigerian will immediately know that Governor Ademola Adeleke has a terribly bad case before the tribunal, as it is a common knowledge in Ede that he had issues with his certificate. No matter how hard he tries, there are people who are still alive who know his story.
“Again, the issue of over-voting is unassailable. We were able to prove our case on these two grounds before the Tribunal and we are confident that the outcome will favour us,” Lawal stated.
