INEC is appendage of APC in Ogun State, alleges Adebutu

Factional governorship candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Ogun State, Ladi Adebutu, has accused the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) of instigating the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to distabilise the major opposition party ahead of the March 2 election in the state.

Adebutu, who addressed the media in Lagos, yesterday, also alleged that Vice President Yemi Osinbajo and the ruling party were demonstrating unrestrained desperation to win the election even when it amounts to destroying the leading opposition party.

Adebutu’s outcry came on the heels of the commission’s recognition of the PDP factional group and Senator Buruji Kashamu as the party’s governorship candidate in the election, as published on its website on Thursday.

According to Adebutu: “It was a deliberate and desperate action on the part of INEC to recognise the faction of PDP in Ogun with lesser followers, based on a section of court judgment, while there is another existing judgment that also authenticate my own candidacy based on the Amended Electoral Act, the PDP Constitution and the fact that the primary that produced me was endorsed and accepted by the national headquarters of our party.”

He, however, said the plan and expectation of APC and its collaborators ahead of the election would be shamed, saying: “WE are not going to leave or be frustrated out of PDP; we will stay and participate in the election, defeat APC and by the grace of God, I will be announced as the next governor of the state.”

On the role he alleged Osinbajo and APC were playing in PDP’s internal crisis in Ogun, Adebutu said: “Osinbajo is desperate to see that his party wins Ogun. In the first instance, he transferred his voting right from Lagos to the state.

“He once approached me to leave PDP and defect to APC to run for senate, but I refused.”

Adebutu added that INEC was part of the PDP’s leadership crisis between Senator Ahmed Makarfi and Senator Ali Modu Sheriff, which the Supreme Court intervened and ruled in favour of Makarfi, saying the Sheriff group, to which Kashamu belonged, has since left PDP and joined APC.

“The commission was also aware of our primaries and how I was elected and recognised by the national headquarters of PDP. It was, therefore, unacceptable for it to go ahead and published the name of a faction with less followers, if it is not an appendage of the ruling party,” he noted.