The Peoples Democratic Party’s (PDP) candidate for governor on March 18th, Hon. Oladipupo Adebutu, was accused of electoral fraud, and the All Progressives Congress (APC) chapter for Ogun State stated on Friday that the most honorable thing for him to do was to present himself to security agencies.
The party urged Adebutu to cease giving his supporters false optimism and insisted that his alleged atrocities during the previous election would be investigated thoroughly and tried in the appropriate court of law to serve as a deterrent to others.
Ogun APC was responding to a media statement attributed to Adebutu, in which he voiced concerns about the most recent gubernatorial election in the state, including the participation of a former governor of the state, Gbenga Daniel, among other things.
The party claimed that the statement released by Adebutu was laced with intent to conceal some atrocities and change the true story in a statement signed by the assistant publicity secretary of the party in the State, Olusola Ogunsanya Blessed, and made available to newsmen in Abeokuta, the State capital.
According to the party’s interpretation of Adebutu’s remarks, the PDP chairman and Daniel must have been humiliated as a result of the exposure of their alleged antics and plots during the previous general election.
The statement said, in part: “While Adebutu failed miserably to defend the fact that Gbenga Daniel worked for him and his party, the PDP, and betrayed the party that gave him a ticket and even sponsored him to become a Senator of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, he tried to be clever by half by denying the allegation of bribery leveled against the former Ogun Governor with excessive arrogance.
Every astute political observer can see that Adebutu and Daniel were deeply humiliated by the exposure of their crimes in the public spotlight. As a result, the bribery, criminal conspiracy, and money laundering suspect, who is currently hiding out in a foreign nation, chose to defend the impeachable and further expose the relationship’s astounding level of moral decadence and perfidy.
The way Adebutu defended himself—referring to Daniel as “a very rich man in his own right”—clearly shows how naive he is despite his advanced age. Sadly, his line of thinking defies critical thinking and is a reflection of his pretentious and false demeanor.
It is even more impolite for the PDP candidate for governor to ignorantly refer to his father and Gbenga Daniel as supporters of Governor Dapo Abiodun, cleverly elevating bar chitchat and foolish innuendos as means of interacting with the public.
“On the subject of performance and the reelection of Governor Dapo Abiodun, it is surprising that a man like Oladipupo Adebutu, who is well known for being utterly slothful and fatally afflicted with mental laziness, could accuse any government of non-performance and corruption when he lacks the intellectual fortitude to conduct a thorough evaluation of government policies and activities,” the author writes.
In addition, the statement accused Adebutu of dishonestly undermining the political process by allegedly participating in money laundering and electoral fraud.
Additionally, it stated that Governor Dapo Abiodun had the support of the populace and had since settled into office, encouraging Adebutu to muster the fortitude to return home to face justice.
The question of Governor Dapo Abiodun’s acceptance and popularity is the most important one that Adebutu brings up in his thesis. The crucial question to put to Adebutu is this: If Governor Dapo Abiodun, as he claimed, was not well-liked and could not have won the election on March 18, why did Adebutu and his allies resort to open-and-shut rigging by working with Zenith Bank to issue 200,000 ATM verve credit cards, each preloaded with N10,000, to bribe the electorate in the State?
“A popular candidate would simply have meticulously tracked his votes, as did Governor Dapo Abiodun, and not descended to the level of criminality, audaciously violating the sanctity of the election process, as did Adebutu and the PDP.
Finally, Adebutu should muster the fortitude to return home and turn himself in to the security forces for prosecution if he is the man he claims to be. He shouldn’t be giving his credulous supporters false optimism at this point.
The statement said, “And to be clear, the people of Ogun State are firmly behind their Governor and are very optimistic that their stolen votes by Adebutu and the PDP through significant rigging will be retrieved by the Tribunal as soon as possible.”
