TELL Magazine

• …Accuses Police of Shielding Opponent

Dragged to court for allegedly deploying whooping ₦2 billion to buy votes during the March 18 governorship and House of Assembly elections, Ogun State governorship candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, Oladipupo Adebutu, has fired back, alleging that Dapo Abiodun, incumbent governor and candidate of the All Progressives Congress, APC during the disputed election, was as culpable. Adebutu is at the governorship election petition tribunal challenging Abiodun’s victory. The governor had garnered 276,298 votes to defeat his major opponent who scored 262,383 votes.
Reacting on Wednesday to media reports of his prosecution by the office of the Attorney General of the Federation and minister of Justice, Adebutu accused the Inspector General of Police, Usman Alkali Baba, of shielding the governor by refusing to investigate his party’s petition against him six weeks ago, for alleged inducement of voters with ₦3 billion of state funds, electoral violence, and intimidation of voters. The embattled PDP candidate expressed frustration that the police had so far failed to take any action on the petition.
Recall that the case built against Adebutu by the police was on the strength of a petition by the state chairman of APC, Yemi Sanusi, during the governorship poll alleging ₦2bn vote-buying scheme. Police report on the petition had indicted Adebutu of using the alleged sum to induce voters with Verve prepaid ATM cards loaded with ₦10,000 each.
But speaking on Wednesday in Abeokuta through the Media Director of his campaign organisation, Afolabi Orekoya, Adebutu accused Governor Abiodun and the APC of using the police to suppress the petition, intimidate and harass him and PDP members.
According to him, “We have petitioned the Nigerian Police for the past six weeks, but we are surprised why the police have not opened up an investigation into our petition against Abiodun and the APC on the votes bought by them. It is everywhere in the media that Governor Dapo Abiodun induced voters with tax payer’s money. This is why they are covering up all the shenanigans and they have not allowed the police to do their job.
“We are calling on the IGP to please, in the interest of the good people of Ogun State, allow this petition to see the light of the day. They should not cover it up; they should not suppress it. We know all the moves the Governor has been making to ensure that all these investigations are not being carried out. We are appealing to the IGP to speedily allow thorough investigation into how Dapo Abiodun used about N3bn of tax payer’s money to buy votes in Ogun State with the help of One Card limited”.
On his prosecution, Adebutu claimed “We are just seeing it also in the media and I will just want to make some points clear. Hon. Oladipupo Adebutu has not been served with any court document as regards any charges except for the media trial that we are seeing all around. They (APC and Abiodun) are only trying to distract people and distract the judiciary from giving proper attention to the merit of the petition before them. They should allow the tribunal to do their job. This is an abuse of court process. They should allow the Tribunal do their job, and at the end of the day, we will know who actually perpetrated vote buying or not.”