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Osun 2018: How APC Can Be Defeated – Adewale
The Lagos Entrepreneur, Philanthropist and a part time politician, Otunba Segun Adewale has hinted on what the oppositions can do to dislodge APC from power in the forthcoming September 22nd election in Osun State.
Adewale contested for Governor on the platform of the Action Democratic Party (ADP), in the recently concluded election in Ekiti State, where an incumbent People’s Democratic Party (PDP) government led by Governor Ayodele Fayose who presented Dr. Kolapo Olusola Eleka was defeated by Dr. Kayode Fayemi of the APC.
Adewale was the Chairman of the People Democratic Party (PDP) in Lagos State before moving to Ekiti, in summary, his political antecedents has given him deep experience on how elections are conducted in Nigeria, and also as a stakeholder, he has great numbers of ideas on what can be done in the coming election.
While granting an interview to some selected journalists at his office on Friday, Adewale who is also known as OSAPraPra by the Ekiti people stated that “Experience is the best teacher of life” therefore giving his own views based on practical experience to guide the oppositions that wants to wrestle powers from the ruling government in Osun State.
He said that when he contested for governorship election in Ekiti, there were possibilities for other parties to work together to prevent APC from gaining power but all parties involved went to the battle field individually and they all lost to Federal Might.
According to him, he is of the opinion that for APC to be defeated and for Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola and his anointed candidate, Mr Gboyega Oyetola to be sent away from Osun State, he advised all opposition political parties to jointly present a candidate on the “most accepted and popular party” and team up by a way of forming alliance before going into the election on September 22nd, he alluded his inability to win in Ekiti to lack of resources, that any party that must take lead in the arrangement must be able to generate enough resources to match the ruling APC. What is important at this moment is how to rescue Osun from further poverty, debt, unemployment and executive rascality, urging all actors to put aside their ego and work together for the sake of the Osun people at this critical time.
Adewale said that all the major players involved in the forthcoming election including Alhaji Moshood Adeoti of the ADP, Senator Iyiola Omisore of the SDP and Senator Ademola Adeleke of the PDP must be ready to work out an alliance and present a single candidate if at all they are ready to win and send those they don’t want away from powers.
According to Adewale, all what the parties involved needs to do is to set up a committee, to pick the most popular political party with the wider and formidable structure, that the Osun people can vote for, then sign Memorandum of Understanding on power sharing arrangement which should be fairly distributed and accordingly. The joy of each of them in the end should be that none of them lost out to the APC.
He alerted them that, PDP, ADP and SDP won’t be in contention with the APC but Federal power which includes INEC, Police, CBN money, Army and other security agencies.
Adewale said that, apart from the Federal Agencies that the APC led Federal government will deploy to the state to rig the election as they had demominstated in Ondo and Ekiti elections, the amount of money they will pump on that day just to secure people’s votes may not be easily matched by any of the opposition candidates if they go into the election individually. He said the Trader Moni is one of such tricks to buy votes, that if not so, why would they be demanding for the PVC details of beneficiaries on the application form.
Buhari’s 2019 re-election is the main reason APC is all out with our resources to take States in the South West, by all possible means.
Adewale said, electorates may not vote based on the good manifesto but act based on what they are given on the election day, he expressed fear that the stake is very higher now and that APC won’t mind to pay N20, 000 per vote in their “See and Buy” method aided by police and INEC.
Speaking further, he also cautioned that one of the common conspiracies between the APC and INEC is to technically frustrate opposition by making it difficult for them to obtain their electoral materials on the day of election, he said in his own case in Ekiti election, agent tags were not released in most of the local government until about 1:45pm when the election was almost over.
He also said in some cases, ballot papers will be missing in the areas where the opposition have their stronghold, and in other areas, ballot papers and other electoral materials meant for a particular polling units will be deliberately taken to another polling units just to destabilize the opposition on the election day.
Adewale said apart from their usual manipulation of results, there are other technical areas the oppositions are cheated, he cited a case where wrong results may be captured to reduce the votes of the other parties to give an undue advantage to the APC. I am willing to help out, to work with Osun Stakeholders on how to achieve victory, he said.
Concluding the interview, the Ekiti born politician said, all the grey areas where APC and INEC can use to rig out the opposition can be blocked if all the major parties can come together to form a critical mass and work together because the more the merrier, he said that focus should be how to put all resources together to combat the APC.
Adewale also said that for Nigerians to get rid of the current government at the center in 2019, all hands must be on deck, because previous election have shown that it is impossible for any one single political party to defeat the current APC, stating that no matter how battered or disjointed the party is today, they are currently working with three other unregistered political political such as the INEC, Army and Police.
