The Conference of Nigeria Political Parties in Osun says it has endorsed the Peoples Democratic Party candidate, Dr. Ademola Adeleke, for the July 8 bye-election for Osun West Senatorial district.
The Secretary of the conference in the state, Gbade Adelakun, made this known at a news briefing on Sunday in Ede, Osun State.
Adelakun said that the group endorsed the PDP candidate because it believed that he would deliver the dividends of democracy to people in the constituency.
He said that nine political parties had supported Adeleke’s candidature for the bye-election.
He listed them as: All Progressive Grand Alliance, Action Alliance, Social Democratic Party and Green Party of Nigeria.
Others, according to Adelakun, are Alliance for Democracy, Democratic People’s Party, Unity Party of Nigeria, People’s Party of Nigeria and People’s Democratic Movement.
Adelakun urged the Independent National Electoral Commission not to postpone the election as being rumoured and warned that the group would resist such action.
He alleged that INEC had been under pressure from the ruling All Progressives Congress to shift the election date.
He said: “Postponement of the election will amount to unnecessary tension among the political parties. The moral burden is on INEC not to shift the date of election.”
The conference’s scribe also alleged that APC was planning to rig the bye-election with the help of “State Boys”.
Adelakun said: “We call on security agents and law-abiding citizens of Osun and Osun-West Senatorial District in particular; to call on the APC to allow wise counsel to prevail in this matter, a stitch in time saves nine.”
But the APC Director of Publicity and Strategy in the state, Kunle Oyatomi, dismissed the allegations as baseless.
Oyatomi said that the APC would win the election, adding that the party had no plan to rig any election.
The Director of Publicity and Voter Education at INEC, Oluwole Osaze-Uzzi, had on Thursday said that the commission was not planning to shift the election as being alleged.
The bye-election was prompted by the death of Senator Isiaka Adeleke, the representative of the district in the Senate, on April 23.
His younger brother, Demola, was subsequently given the mandate by the PDP to be its candidate in the election and his closest opponent is Mudashiru Hussain of the APC.
However, the Alliance of Collaborating Political Parties in the state has denied the alleged adoption of Adeleke by political parties in Osun State.
The ACPP said the claim by Pastor Popoola Olatunji, the state chairman of the All Progressives Grand Alliance, during a radio programme on Rave 91.7 FM last week that all political parties under the aegis of the Conference of Nigeria Political Parties in Osun State had adopted Adeleke as the sole candidate of the opposition parties was untrue.
This was contained in a press statement made available to newsmen in Osogbo on Sunday by the Chairman and Financial Secretary of the ACPP, Waheed Lawal and Adesoji Massilo Adeleke.
Lawal described the adoption statement made by Poopola as joke of a thousand nights.
According to him: “APGA fielded no candidate in the forthcoming senatorial by-election and the CNPP he said is administering has no parties as members. Then why the noise?
“Pastor Popoola who was once the secretary in CNPP has no right to speak for all the registered political parties in the state. APGA is not among the contesting political parties for the Osun West Senatorial by-election. His political party has a case in court, why is he interfering in issues that doesn’t concern him. It has been made known from a reliable source that only eleven political parties will be participating in the forthcoming senatorial by-election. The parties include ACD, APC, GPN, LP, MPPP, NCP, NNPP, PDP, PRP, SDP and UDP. Please where is APGA? My sincere advice to him is to leave APGA and join his vague civil rights association for it is no more news that he is becoming irrelevant and extraneous.”
The Alliance of Collaborating Political Parties advised PDP to deal with Pastor Popoola as an individual and not on behalf of all the registered political parties.
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