In the build up to the House of Assembly elections on March 11, 2023, I laughed the sacked Osun State Governor Ademola Adeleke to scorn as he was hypocritically preaching peace during his meeting with the National Assembly candidates of his party who were declared winners by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) in a charade called elections in the state. Whoever has been holistically following the political events in the state would not agree less that Adeleke is either not qualified to preach peace or he is not sincere with his gospel of peace. It is axiomatic that it's pretty difficult for a man to give what he does not possess.
Based on the unsavoury violent events that characterised the last Saturday's elections into the National Assembly in the state whereby the whole state became a garrison area because of the militarization of the elections by the hoodlums loyal to the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the state, whoever believes Adeleke in his sermon for peace could as well believe that virgins are in abundance in the maternity ward! It still remains illusory to me how Adeleke will be preaching what he is not practising. The embattled governor's plight could be likened to a pathological sadist whose stomach is full of blood and spitting out white saliva in order to give a false impression of being kind-hearted.
Is it not strange that Adeleke who is stepping on the blood of seventeen innocent souls as at the last count of the members of the opposition APC along with his co-travellers started the celebration and justification of the questionable victory of the nine national assembly candidates of the PDP even when it had not been officially announced by the legally recognized institution to do so? If Adeleke is imbued with conscience, he would not fail to recognize the fact that the said elections were devoid of a level play ground.
Will one call a situation where the PDP thugs militarized the elections across the state threatening any potential voter who would not vote for the PDP with guns, cutlasses, cudgels, juju and acid a fair contest? Adeleke cannot pretend not to know that his party did not play by the rule to achieve its controversial victory. One wonders if the Ede-born governor has blood flowing in his veins as he, as the Chief Security Officer of the state, hasn't deemed it fit to condemn the killings of the seventeen members of the APC by the PDP thugs as a watershed for the pyrrhic victory of the candidates of his party.
Were those APC members dispatched to heaven prematurely by the PDP political thugs to be his relations, would he have kept mute? Adeleke's refusal not to condemn the killings of the seventeen members of the opposition was an indication that the commission of the criminal offences has his express blessing which makes nonsense of his sermon for peace. I make bold to state that Adeleke is not sincere with his latest gospel for peace in the state with reference to the conduct of the March 11, 2023 state House of Assembly elections. Whoever is blessed with the rare quality of hindsight would not find it difficult to know that the PDP will use maximum force during the forthcoming elections as its handlers are in the know that the ruling party cannot win any elections without resorting to violence.
If Adeleke and his opportunistic political vampires are sincere with his newly-acquired status of peace ambassador which is only a decoy to armtwist and hit the opposition below the belt in the forthcoming House of Assembly elections, his election strategy team would not recommend some measures aimed at putting the APC at a fatal disadvantage during the elections. It was reliably gathered that apart from employing maximum violence during the elections, other booby traps and landmines have been perfected by the Osun State PDP strategists against the APC.
Information has it that some pliable and corrupt adhoc staff of the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) extraction would be clandestinely enlisted whose illegal mission particularly at the strongholds of the APC would be to add one or two illegal votes in order to wittingly achieve overvoting and subsequent cancellation of votes at the affected polling units which loss would harm the opposition more. It was also learnt that some pliable security officers have also agreed to work with the PDP desperados in the elections. Some leaders of the PDP would be moving some wads of Naira notes to be dumped wherever the APC leaders are staying while the PDP leaders who are saddled with the Judaistic responsibility would simultaneously beckon at the already positioned compromised officers who would effect the arrest of such unsuspecting APC members on phantom vote-buying charge.
Another inglorious method which, of course, is not new, to be employed by Adeleke and his desperate political associates during the election is to effect the arrest of some identified powerful members of the opposition on trump-up charges as from Wednesday preceding the elections with a view to keeping them away till after the elections. It was also learnt that hooded fake police and military officers who are political hoodlums whose illegal duties would be to create fear, attack, maim and possibly kill any uncompromised member of the opposition, have been assigned their roles.
It was gathered that the destruction of votes at the strongholds of the APC was also part of the stratagems employed by the PDP tacticians since it worked during the last elections in Iragbiji, the home town of the immediate-past Governor Gboyega Oyetola, who was affirmed the winner of the July 16, 2022 governorship election by the tribunal in Osogbo few weeks ago. It would be recalled that the political thugs invaded the community when the sorting of the thumbprinted ballot papers was being effected, thereby scattered and destroyed all the already thumbprinted ballot papers amidst booming of guns and dangling of cutlasses and cudgels by the PDP hoodlums in connivance with some members of some dissidents and rebels within the opposition who have been working for the PDP all along. The ballot boxes were carried away by the thugs in some cases with injuries inflicted on some of the opposition members.
Discreet intelligence showed that the singsong among the Osun State PDP leaders and members now is that the March 11, 2023 House of Assembly election is the most important which should be prosecuted without mercy as any governor of a state operates at the mercy of the state House of Assembly. Adeleke is not sincere with his message of peace during the conduct of the House of Assembly elections. The embattled state governor is only selling a dummy to the opposition with a view to hitting them below the belt as was the case during the last National Assembly elections in the state.
In order to avoid bloodshed of innocent people, it is important to remind the players in the elections that they should strive to play according to the rules afterall, democracy is about making choices at the polling stations. It is also noteworthy that we unwittingly write everyday through our actions and inactions which should be predicated on what we desire for ourselves when the history of this passing phase would be relayed in future.
Here, I rest my case.
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OLABISI is the Director of Media and Information, Osun State APC.* ([email protected]).
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