The re-election campaign council of the Osun State governorship candidate of the All Progressives Congress, (APC) has called on the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to investigate Ademola Adeleke, governorship candidate of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) over his comment that he would induce voters before and during the July 16, 2020, gubernatorial election in the state.
Addressing a press conference, at the Ilerioluwa Campaign Office in Osogbo on Tuesday, Ajibola Basiru, the director-general of the Osun APC Campaign Council, said it was pertinent to draw the attention of the anti-graft agency to the unguarded comments in order to challenge Adeleke and his party, the PDP, to explain what he meant when he allegedly said “he had arrived with hard currencies to prosecute the election and to approach the election “fire for fire”.
Basiru argued that for an individual to have declared publicly, his uncontrolled and insatiable appetite for power to the extent of boasting to financially induce the electorate, he needed to be investigated and prosecuted by the anti-graft body to stop him from compromising the electoral process and fledgling democracy.
He called on the EFCC and other anti-graft agencies to beam their searchlight on the matter and summon the PDP candidate for a thorough investigation and questioning to unravel what he meant by “he has brought “hard currencies to buy votes.”
Read also: 2023: EFCC warns politicians against vote-buying
He said, “I expected the EFCC to have invited Senator Ademola Adeleke to give an account of what he meant by coming to the state with hard currencies for the Osun State guber election. Certainly, the inducement of voters is a great offence. So, for Senator Adeleke to manifestly declare an intention to induce voters, it warrants criminal investigation by EFCC.
“EFCC should summon him for investigation and questioning by what he meant that he has brought hard currencies to buy votes. That clearly is a manifest intention to commit the offence of inducement of voters which is clearly an electoral offence under the Nigerian law.”
Responding to the allegation levelled against the PDP governorship candidate, Diran Odeyemi, chairman, media and strategy committee of Ademola Adeleke Campaign Organisation, accused the APC of collating the Permanent Voters Cards (PVCs) details of public servants, teachers and pensioners so as to engage in pre-and election day vote-buying.
“APC has just test run its agenda to buy up votes and the electoral outcomes through the recently concluded Ekiti guber election. As was documented in Ekiti, Osun APC is plotting a more advanced vote-buying mechanism which has elements of pre-voting and on-the-spot purchase.
“We call on the security and anti-corruption agencies to redouble their efforts towards taming the APC vote-buying agenda. We warn against any attempt to cover up the many pieces of evidence of vote-buying plots by the APC. Osun is not for sale and it is high time APC heeded the frank warning from our people”, he said.
