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Outgoing Ekiti state governor, Ayodele Fayose, has accused the All Progressives Congress (APC) of planning to rig the governorship election coming up in Osun state on Saturday. He said the party rigged its way to victory in Ekiti in July and was also planning to use the same “rigging tactics” in Osun.
Fayose, who spoke to reporters in company of Senate President, Bukola Saraki, in Ede, Osun state, on Thursday after the rally held in support the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) candidate, Senator Ademola Adeleke, alleged that the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and the police have been compromised in the process leading to Saturday’s election.
His words: “INEC has been compromised, police have been compromised. When they want to arrest they will arrest PDP. When they are doing vote buying it is PDP that will be arrested, not APC. It is whoever police call a criminal that is a criminal. When already police are taking sides, what do we say to that? When you are telling us what level of confidence, it is about the system, the process. If I come here and arrest you with gun what will you do? If they have the effrontery to say they are declaring the candidate of PDP in an election that is 48 hours away as the criminal to create a perception, you can imagine.”
He added: “They are taking this state one after the other and they forget that nothing will last forever. We must all condemn this unnecessary, unwarranted assault on democracy…
“For APC to come here and start talking about corruption, we have had enough of that. I wrote to EFCC that I will be coming on the 16th. I am still a sitting governor, you are declaring me wanted. You said they should be looking for me. I am here today. When I was passing the airport I had to look for Customs officers to tell them ‘I am here if you need someone to arrest.’
“This is not the country of our dream, this is not the democracy of our dream. For anybody to say PDP wants to rig this election it’s exactly what they want to do that they are now laying on others. You saw what happened in Ekiti. Have you ever seen a governorship election won by under 20,000 vote? They won with 19,000 votes and voided votes were 18,000.”
He stressed that the rigging strategy “is to invalidate most of the votes when they know that it is not adding up for them.
“And I want to say to them if they like they set Nigeria ablaze. They must remember the children yet unborn. Those who are benefitting from this wickedness should remember that if the last administration were to be like this they would never have got there”, he stressed.