The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has cautioned the police to desist from acting the script of the All Progressives Congress (APC) against Sen. Ademola Adeleke, the PDP candidate for the Osun governorship election on Saturday.
The PDP described the latest twist in the Adeleke certificate scandal, leading to what it described as laughable trumped-up charges by the police, as horrible, nauseating and displeasing.
The National Publicity Secretary of the PDP, Kola Ologbondiyan, in a statement on Wednesday said the allegations that Adeleke was involved in an exam malpractice in 2017, as well as his invitation by the police barely two days before the governorship election in Osun, was a ploy by the APC to distract the PDP candidate and put him out of circulation before and during the election.
He said, “While the PDP is not against any legitimate effort by any security agency in the discharge of its duties, we totally reject this unrelenting attempt to use trumped-up charges to take down our candidate simply because the APC has realised that he is coasting to victory.
“Perhaps, the police needs to be educated that the West African Examination Council has already confirmed that Senator Adeleke sat the body’s examination in 1981, thus ending the earlier unnecessary controversy about his WAEC status.
“Moreover, this is the same police that have not been able to invite the disgraced erstwhile Minister of Finance, Kemi Adeosun, over her forged NYSC Exemption Certificate; or the Special Assistant to the President on Prosecution and Chairman of the Special Investigative Panel for the Recovery of Public Property, Chief Okoi Obono-Obla, whose certificate, WAEC openly told the National Assembly, was fake.
“There are several leaders in the APC, whose certificates have been questioned and which the police have not considered it needful to conduct the littlest investigation.”
Also, the Deputy National Publicity Secretary of the PDP, Mr Diran Odeyemi, said the police had been compromised.
Odeyemi in a statement said the harassment of the candidate of the opposition party was an indication of what would happen during the poll, urging the people of the state to be vigilant.
The statement read in part, “We affirm that our candidate, Senator Ademola Adeleke, is not involved in any form of conspiracy to commit examination malpractice at any point in time.
“We once again call on well meaning leaders of thought in Nigeria and the international community to rise up in defence of democracy in Nigeria.”
Odeyemi said the PDP was confident that the party’s candidate would emerge victorious on Saturday.
The Senate President, Senator Bukola Saraki, has also condemned the APC-led Federal Government over the police invitation to the PDP candidate.
Saraki spoke with journalists at the residence of Adeleke in Ede after a meeting of the PDP leaders at the venue.
Ekiti State Governor, Ayo Fayose, also described the APC as a party full of desperate people, saying the party’s actions showed that it had compromised the Independent National Electoral Commission and security agencies ahead of the poll.
Saraki said, “Security agents are meant to be neutral but when they become partisan, it is a problem to the whole nation.”
Fayose also said, “We must condemn the APC desperation, they are taking over the state one after the other. If the last administration was this desperate, they would not have been here.”
