Osun witnessed lockdown, not LG poll — APM chair

The Osun State Chairman of the Allied Peoples Movement, Adewale Adebayo, has berated the State Independent Electoral Commission over Saturday’s local government election.

Speaking with reporters on Saturday, Adebayo claimed that there was no election anywhere in the state except in Ede, the hometown of Governor Ademola Adeleke.

He said that OSIEC’s insistence on conducting the poll was to justify allocated money, describing the action as fraud.

Adebayo said his members in various towns confirmed that elections didn’t hold in their areas.

He said, “We experience in Osun State today is not election but lockdown because people refused to participate in the illegal poll except Ede town where only a few members of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) voted in some polling units of top political appointees of the governor.

“Our party is vindicated with this exercise of our earlier apprehension that OSIEC can never conduct any meaningful election since its chairman, Hashim Abioye, is a card-carrying member of PDP and serves Adeleke as Special Adviser Legal matters and served as PDP caretaker Secretary.

“Osun State Government through OSIEC only wasted billions of Naira on shadow election. Our members in Irewole, Isokan, Boripe, Ifelodun, Olorunda, Egbedore, Irepodun and Orolu, amongst other places, confirmed that elections were not held.

“In fact, in Ede, they held an illegal election, they claimed they concluded voting by 8:30 am, the same Ede that voted till 9 pm during the governorship election in 2022.

“Adeleke, Abioye and other members of the cabinets who had run away from the state should make a statewide broadcast to apologise to the residents for imposing lockdown on them.”