Osun APC Tells Adeleke: You’re Unqualified to Advocate for Free and Fair Elections

Ademola Adeleke, the state governor, was undercut by the All Progressives Congress (APC) Osun State chapter during his Democracy Day speech.

The section further said that because he was a byproduct of the state’s rigged 2022 governorship election, he was unfit to be an advocate for free and fair elections and the upholding of the law.

Obasanjonews.com recalled that Governor Adeleke had declared that free and fair elections would be the best way to honour the memory of the late Bashorun MKO Abiola, the declared winner of the election, and other democratic heroes in a statement commemorating the annulled June 12, 1993 presidential election.

Among other things, Governor Adeleke had stated in the statement that free and fair elections are essential to a healthy democracy and that election tampering is an act of war.

He also urged the populace to respect the people’s will and submit to the preservation of democracy’s core principles.

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In a statement released on Thursday by the party’s director of media and information, Kola Olabisi, the chairman of the Osun APC, Tajudeen Lawal, said that the way he and other PDP candidates won the state’s highest political executive seat during the previous elections contradicts with Governor Adeleke’s teachings about true democratic institutions.

Lawal also claimed that by militarising every crevice in the state, Governor Adeleke used the utmost violence to win the election.

According to Lawal: “It is ironic that Governor Adeleke, who arbitrarily used Executive Orders to remove some of the legitimately enthroned Obas out of political victimisation and retaliation, could be discussing the necessity of upholding the rule of law.

It’s also amusing that Governor Adeleke, who was advocating for democratic governments to become less authoritarian, thought it was worthwhile to remove Justice (Mrs.) Adepele Ojo, the Chief Judge of the state, whose legal system served as a lifesaver.

Would Governor Adeleke’s conscience have permitted him to fire thousands of teachers and health care providers as well as the 20,000 O’YES cadets he inherited at the start of his government if he were not an autocrat dressed in democratic garb?

Would Governor Adeleke have given priority to building five flyovers in a state as impoverished as Osun, where hunger is rife on every street in the state, if he truly believed in and practiced justice and fairness?

“A responsible state executive would not merely speak about agriculture when the people it governs are starving and lacking in basic necessities.”

Lawal further charged Adeleke of deliberately withholding the November 2022 paychecks of the public employees under his watch as retaliation for their affiliation with the opposition party.