An Oyo State-based socio-political group, the Oyo Kajola Group (OKG), on Thursday chided the governorship candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the March 9 election, Mr. Adebayo Adelabu, and his party for allegedly seeking to snatch the governorship seat through the back door.

The group, in a statement by its Media Coordinator, Adebayo Ayandele, said that the statements credited to the APC and its candidate were targeted at provoking the good people of Oyo State.

It said: “We cannot understand what Mr. Adelabu meant when he said he had a date with history in a statement he made after the ruling of the Court of Appeal on his election petition. We can also not understand the enthusiasm of the APC on the same matter.

“Rather than creating false hopes and hiding under the banners of lies and confusion to deceive their followers, we wish to urge the APC to face the reality of it all and accept that the 2019 governorship election in Oyo State has been won by Engineer Oluseyi Makinde.

“Let us warn very clearly that the election of the Governor of Oyo State was done within the purview of the law and not extra-legal factors.

“We, therefore, reject in its entirety, any form of ambivalence or ambiguity written into the judgement of the Court of Appeal on the Oyo State election matter and stick to the truth of it all: that Engineer Seyi Makinde remains the man voted for by the people of Oyo state and that his mandate will be in force till May 28, 2023.”

The group described the statement credited to Adelabu that some agents of darkness perfected the plan to steal his mandate,” which led to his “recourse to the judiciary to proof (sic) their wrongdoing,” as hogwash, and an insult to the good people of Oyo State who massively rejected him on March 9, 2019.

The statement also warned the APC not to keep the hopes of manipulative tendencies too high as according to it, no one can supplant Makinde through the back door.

The group urged Makinde to continue the good works he has started in Oyo State, which it said have made him a cynosure of all eyes and a worthy example for other governors.

It noted that “the APC’s plot to take a mandate given to Governor Makinde by Oyo State people through evil machinations will not succeed.”

The statement read: “We read with amusement a statement credited to Adelabu that the pronouncement of the Election Appeal Tribunal has rekindled his and his party’s hope in their march to keep a date with history. They, indeed, will have their date with history at the Supreme Court and it will end in disappointment and shame, as we are sure that the court, as the last bastion of hope for the common man, will not allow itself to be used for the APC’s evil intention.

“In the said statement, like a similar one released by the APC a day after the judgment, Adelabu had robed himself in borrowed gowns, stating how some imaginary people knew he was the best candidate among the lots that sought the mandate of Oyo State people. He had equally prided his campaign as most organized and issue-driven.

“We in the Oyo Kajola Group would not have bothered with whatever borrowed gowns Adelabu chose to robe himself in, of course, no one can stop a butterfly determined to pride itself as a bird.

“Indeed, we would have considered his statement and that of his party as a bit of blarney, an amusing nonsense that should be laughed at and ignored but knowing the evil machinations of the APC and its tendencies to pervert the cause of justice and snatch popular mandates through the judiciary, we will like to place it on record that the APC did not and could not have won the 2019 governorship election in the state. The result of the election in which Makinde won in 28 out of 33 local governments, polling 515,621 votes to defeat the Adelabu, who polled 357,982 votes.

“The people of Oyo State reacted rightly by voting against the APC, a party that nearly ruined Oyo State in eight years; turned nearly every institution and processes upside down and tore into the core of the state’s nobility and prestige as a pace-setter state. The people voted against a reign of terror synonymous with the APC campaigns.

“It is, therefore, amusing that the same party is laying claim to victory and putting its hopes in the Supreme Court. We will like to call on well-meaning Nigerians and members of the international community to be watchful at a time like this so that some desperate individuals do not sabotage democracy using ill-gotten wealth to pervert the cause of justice.”

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