news
update
|
Tinubu dismisses PDP’s
allegations on Ekiti REC |
|
Seun Oloketuyi's Notes-- Facebook
Wednesday April 29,2009
newsdiaryonline.com |
Former Governor of Lagos State Asiwaju
Bola Tinubu has dismissed "wild
allegations" against him from the Ekiti
Peoples Democratic Party (PDP)
concerning Mrs Ayoka Adebayo, the Ekiti
State Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC)
who resigned yesterday over attempts to
manipulate the result of the rerun
election. He said such "wild and
infantile" allegations, aimed at
diverting attention from the issue at
hand, would not deter him from standing
up for the principle of justice and fair
play and the campaign to make every vote
count, starting with Ekiti. The PDP in
Ekiti State, in a statement by Jackson
Adebayo, the party’s director of
Communication and Strategy, alleged that
Tinubu bribed Mrs. Adebayo with N250
million, met with the woman in Akure, in
the company of Engr. Rauf Aregbesola
hours before the election and that Mrs.
Adebayo, while she claimed to be ill,
was in Asiwaju Tinubu’s Abuja home. But
in a rebuttal of all the allegations,
Asiwaju Tinubu said they were tissues of
lies and figment of imagination of
confused cheats caught in the act of
trying to steal the people’s mandate,
freely given to Dr. Kayode Fayemi, the
candidate of the Action Congress. "I
never met with Mrs. Adebayo, either
alone or with any other person," the
former governor declared. "In fact, I
had had cause to express concern over
her appointment following a weekly news
magazine’s reportage of her alleged
closeness to former President Olusegun
Obasanjo. So, how could I have met with
someone I had feared was planted by the
powers-that- be to swing elections in
their favour?" On the allegation that
Tinubu bribed the former Ekiti REC with
N250 million, he responded: "What would
a 74-year old woman be doing with N250
million? In any case, if she were so
corrupt, are the PDP not rich enough to
triple that amount, if only she would be
game? This allegation," he declared, "is
poor nonsense and just mud splashing. It
is the incoherent jabber of those whose
open coup against the Ekiti people has
been foiled. There is absolutely no
truth in it." The Ekiti PDP also claimed
Mrs. Adebayo was sighted in Tinubu’s
Abuja home, while she claimed to be ill.
But Tinubu countered: "First, I’d like
the PDP to show me my home in Abuja. If
I don’t have a home there, how could I
possibly hide someone there? In any
case, even if I wanted to, why would I
hide her in my home? Am I stupid? The
fact is these are wild allegations
reeled out just to change focus from the
matter at hand: the attempt to
manipulate the election result and
pronounce Segun Oni the loser as the
winner." Tinubu said the former REC was
now being demonised by the PDP because
she refused to do evil for those who
believed in the inevitability of evil.
"For once, we have a woman who faced
evil and said a flat ‘no’. Instead of
commending her, they are demonising
her.. But our people know who is right
and wrong in this matter. The world also
knows. There is no amount of childish
propaganda that can change the truth:
that the PDP have bungled an evil
attempt to impose Segun Oni on Ekiti
State."
|
|
|
|
