The Osun state governor elect, Senator Ademola Adeleke has said some loyalists of Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola, Minister of Interior, worked with him for victory in the governorship election.
The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) candidate in the election discl this in an interview with Channels Television.
DAILY GIST reported that the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) had declared Adeleke governor-elect, on Sunday.
He polled a total of 403,371 votes ahead of outgoing Governor Gboyega Oyetola of the All Progressives Congress (APC), who polled 375,027 votes.
Adeleke secured victory in the stronghold of the APC, a development which many attributed to the rift between Oyetola and Aregbesola.
Speaking on the development, Adeleke said, “I did not work with Aregbesola. I didn’t even talk to him, but all I know is his associates, for example, Kolapo Alimi, one of the lawyers that represented Oyetola at the tribunal,” he said.
“Then, anytime I saw him (Alimi) in court, because I’m a civilised person, I will go to them and greet them and say ‘how are you doing?’ It was later he apologised and said ‘he was thinking ‘why is senator Adeleke greeting me? We are trying to mess him up and he is still greeting me’.
“But he later told me that while I was greeting him, I didn’t know that I was giving them poison. They knew that I won the election and they rigged me out and I was still greeting them. I believe that Aregbesola and Oyetola fell out.
“He (Alimi) came to me and said he has watched me and that he wants to join our party and we accepted. But Aregbesola directly? No. But we know a lot of top APC that joined. Assuming that I had been talking to Aregbesola one way or the other, then I would say that maybe he gave them go-ahead to support me.
“These people have grown; they have their own minds to decide if they want to join me or not. They believed that I was the one to beat and they came to me. I won’t know whether Aregbesola gave them go-ahead or not, because I have not been talking to Aregbesola.”
Recall in 2018, Mr Adeleke was leading in the election before it was declared inconclusive by INEC which also ordered a re-run in seven polling units.
The re-run election was heavily militarised and many voters disenfranchised by armed thugs. It was won by the APC candidate which also helped him secure victory in the general election.
Mr Adeleke, a former senator, would see his victory in the latest election as a vindication that he was the original winner of the 2018 election.
The PDP candidate will not, however, be sworn in until November when the tenure of Mr Oyetola will be over.
