OSUN ELECTION NOT JUST ABOUT WINNING, ADELEKE WARNS APC

Osun State Governor, Ademola Adeleke, has said the August 15 governorship election is not merely a contest for victory but an opportunity to send a message to the All Progressives Congress on the need to respect the electorate.

Adeleke made the claim in a post on his X handle on Thursday, in which he named the Minister of Marine and Blue Economy, Gboyega Oyetola, and the APC governorship candidate, Bola Oyebamiji, as having used their influence within the ruling party at the federal level to punish the people of Osun State for backing him in the last election.

“That is why the August 15 election is more than just winning. It is about securing a decisive victory that sends a clear and unmistakable message to the APC: the people of Osun State must always be respected, their democratic choice must be honoured, and no one should ever seek to punish them for exercising their constitutional right to vote,” the governor wrote.

He alleged that the actions of Oyetola and Oyebamiji had targeted the welfare of Osun workers and threatened the livelihoods of civil servants, traders and artisans in the state.

“On numerous occasions, Oyetola and Oyebamiji have used their influence within the ruling party at the federal level to punish the people of Osun State simply because they chose to vote for us in 2022.

Their actions have targeted the welfare of our workers and threatened the livelihoods of our civil servants, traders, artisans, and ordinary citizens.”

The governor’s post comes against the backdrop of a dispute between his administration and the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, which on Wednesday placed a Post-No-Debit restriction on the Osun State Government’s statutory allocation account, barely 10 days to the election.

The anti-graft agency, in a statement by its spokesman, Dele Oyewale, said it had been investigating the state government since March over the alleged fraudulent handling of Ecology Funds, Intervention Funds and Federation Account Allocation Committee disbursements amounting to about N11bn.

The commission said the restriction followed what it described as suspicious transfers from the account to different corporate entities from August 2, and maintained that its action was non-partisan and meant to safeguard public funds.

Adeleke rejected the EFCC’s explanation, describing the freeze as an assault on the constitutional rights of subnational governments and insisting the commission obtained no court order before instructing the bank to restrict the account. He said he had directed the Attorney-General and Commissioner for Justice, Oluwole Jimi-Bada, to challenge the action at the Federal High Court in Osogbo.