Aiyedatiwa Campaign Group Knocks Oke, Cautions Aspirant Against Falsehood
The Lucky Aiyedatiwa Campaign Organisation Foot Soldiers Independent Council (LACO-FSIC) has described a petition filed by one of the governorship aspirants in the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Ondo State, Mr. Olusola Oke (SAN), against the validity of the April 20 primary election of the party as laughable and ridiculous.
The primary poll was won by Governor Lucky Aiyedatiwa while Oke came a distant third.
In a statement issued through its State Director of Information, Mr. Kayode Fasua, in Akure, the campaign group expressed disappointment that Oke, a Senior Advocate, could feed the public with falsehood, by stating that the APC National Chairman, Dr. Abdullahi Ganduje, had been sacked by a court order at the time the primary poll was conducted.
The LACO-FSIC spokesman remarked, stating, “We demur that a Senior Advocate of Nigeria could hit the streets with the tar brush of falsehood, that His Excellency, Dr Abdullahi Ganduje, could not superintend over the conduct of the primary election because of a restraining court order; which is sheer falsehood.
“Oke is supposedly learned as a Senior lawyer and for him to have plied the low road, to read out rulings of a High Court of Justice of Kano State wrongly, apparently because of personal ambition, deserves to be sanctioned by the Nigeria Bar Association (NBA).
“The court in reference, under Honourable Justice Usman Na’aba, had vacated a restraining order which it affirmed against the APC membership of Dr Ganduje on April 17, 2024, translating to the reality that Ganduje was the APC national chairman on April 20 when the Ondo State primary election was conducted.
“However, even if the court had affirmed the suspension of Ganduje as an APC member by his ward, which translated to him being unable to serve in the capacity of the party national chairman, it does not mean that the party leadership is disabled from performing its roles, which included the conduct of the primary election,” Fasua countered.
Besides, he described as a big lie, another accusation by Oke that there was no accreditation of voters in all the wards for the primary election, in his attempt to justify his claim that the poll did not take place.
“While wondering at the supersonic ability of Mr. Oke to monitor all the wards in Ondo State, what we can confirm is that all the 1,115 party delegates drawn at five delegates per ward, cutting across the 203 party wards of the 18 local government areas of Ondo State, gathered in Akure after the primary election, right before the election committee headed by His Excellency, Governor Usman Ododo of Kogi State, to ratify the conduct and result of the direct primary election.
“Oke definitely has loyalists among the 1,115 delegates who did not raise any protest but all applauded the conduct and the results from all the 203 wards, in affirmation,” the LACO-FSIC spokesman stressed.
He thus advised Oke to beat a retreat in his attempt to “cause confusion in the party and instead, toe the path of peace”, noting that Governor Aiyedatiwa is calling all aggrieved persons in the party to a conciliatory table, as the party is set for its campaigns ahead of the November governorship election.
(E-signed)
Kayode Fasua,
State Information Director,
LACO-FSIC