PDP’s politics of failed arm-twisting, coercion, TV attempted subjugation of ppposition APC in Osun, By KOLA OLABISI

The Osun State chapter of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has been described as an association of hypocrites, dissimulators and pretenders who are seeking public offices to feather their nests to the detriment of the genuine development of the state. It is also a misnomer for the state PDP to retain the word ‘democratic’ in its name as there has been none of the actions and inactions of its handlers that qualify it to be so called.

It would be recalled that the leaders and members of the Osun State PDP were mocking the All Progressives Congress (APC) members when the leadership of the party directed its members to observe a seven-day fasting and prayer session that terminated on the eve of the delivery of the governorship petition tribunal judgement that sacked the embattled Governor Ademola Adeleke from the office. The same tribunal which affirmed a forgery case of school documents against Adeleke expressly instructed the national umpire of the election, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to withdraw the certificate of return given to Adeleke and give same to the winner of the July 16, 2022 governorship election in the state, Mr Adegboyega Oyetola.

Since the delivery of the governorship election judgement that affirmed the victory of Oyetola over Adeleke, the battle for retaining the political leadership of the state has shifted to the Court of Appeal for superior adjudication on the governorship issue by ways of an appeal by Adeleke/PDP/INEC and cross appeal by Oyetola and the APC. Whoever has been following my stand on the Osun governorship election quagmire would not agree less with me that I had stated copiously that it was an equivalent of a metaphorical dead sparrow that Adeleke was parading as his mandate which he has been stripped off by the tribunal.

Whoever is blessed with hindsight on the political development of the state would not need a rocket scientist or a soothsayer to observe and conclude that Oyetola’s evidence in the election petition was iron-cast which would be an impossible Utopia to be reversed as it was equally keenly observed by Mr. Femi Falana SAN, an erudite lawyer, shortly after the delivery of the judgement few weeks ago. The governorship election petition tribunal judgement has been witnessing vigorous PDP-sponsored protests both within Osun State and as far as Abuja in order to sell a dummy to the unsuspecting members of the public and by extension, the judiciary, that Adeleke was robbed through the judgement.

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Both Adeleke, the PDP leaders and members in the state have been trying to outdo one another to denigrate and villify the chairman of the tribunal, Justice Tertsea Kumeh, and the only female member of the tribunal, by calling them unprintable names to the chagrin of the right-thinking members of the society. Adeleke and his political co-travellers have forgotten or do not know that there is no nexus between justice and emotion which is the basic reason that court judgements are products of points of law that would not be instrumental to the bringing down of heavens.

With the judgement, there has been an upsurge in the incidents of political attacks and killings of the opposition by the PDP hoodlums who were made to believe by their hirers that the opposition should be run out of the state in order to give room for the electoral victory of the PDP presidential candidate, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, who would help Adeleke to impeach the tribunal judgement at the superior courts. To the surprise of the PDP leaders and members in the state, the political popularity of the APC presidential candidate, Asiwaju Tinubu, is soaring by the day as the PDP goons and hoodlums are attacking, maiming and killing the members of the opposition. With this, Tinubu remains the candidate to beat during the forthcoming presidential election in the state.

The Osun State chapter of the PDP is eminently qualified to be described as being unrepentantly hypocritical because it was found out that the leadership of the party and their members who were mocking the APC members over the seven-day fasting and prayer, have recommended a 21-day fasting and prayer session for their members to seek the face of God in their overvoting and document forgery cases at the Court of Appeal. It is also worthwhile to point out that tongues are wagging among the real owners of the PDP in Osun State when the sit-tight state caretaker committee chairman of the party, Dr Akindele Adekunle, who was appointed in April last year would vacate his illegal chairmanship seat.

The Ondo State-born medical practitioner, Adekunle, who was appointed by the Pathfinder factional leadership of the PDP in Ede was supposed to spend two terms of three months each, has been in the office for eleven months running. Adekunle’s choice of caretaker chairmanship was settled for by the Ede Country home because of his pliability for some of the dirty jobs that he has been doing for the party and the sacked Governor Adeleke.

It is a shame that a political party that prides itself as being democratic as it is reflecting in its name could not find a suitable and capable ‘son of the soil’ who could provide a required leadership for the party. No wonder, the absolute lack of the residual knowledge of the state which is perennially noticeable in the actions and inactions of the permanent Osun State PDP caretaker committee chairman, has done a monumental havoc to the ruling party in the state.

It is also noticed that the aborigines of the PDP who could be said to own the party have kept it at an arm’s length since the time that the party was hijacked by the political vampires from the land of the arrow of fire to date.

▪︎OLABISI is the Osun State APC Director of Media and Information.