A Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) chieftain, Diran Odeyemi, has said that any aggrieved politician who plans to take legal action against the victory of the Osun State governor-elect, Senator Ademola Adeleke, is giving money to lawyers for an academic exercise.
Adeleke won the governorship election in the state on Saturday on the platform of PDP, defeating the incumbent governor from the All Progressives Congress (APC).
In a post-review of the polls, Odeyemi, the former Deputy National Publicity Secretary of PDP, in an interview with Vanguard, said this while adding that an average Nigerian politician does not accept defeat until Supreme Court makes the final verdict. He said that Adeleke’s PDP won because of the mass support of the people in the state. He said the party did house-to-house campaign to defeat APC at the polls.
The PDP in Osun State, on March 8, conducted two governorship primaries featuring Adeleke and Babayemi.
While the primary, which was held at the Osogbo City Stadium, under the supervision of Deputy Governor of Bayelsa, Lawrence Ewhrudjakpo, produced Adeleke, Babayemi was declared the winner at the primary held at the Children and Women Development Centre, Osogbo. Consequently, Babayemi headed for the Federal High Court in Osogbo, seeking to be declared the valid governorship candidate of the PDP.
But the court, in a judgment by Justice Nathaniel Ayo-Emmanuel, affirmed Adeleke as the validly-elected governorship candidate of the Osun State PDP.
Dissatisfied with the ruling, Babayemi filed an appeal at the Court of Appeal, Akure, challenging the judgment of the lower court and seeking to be declared as the PDP governorship candidate. Also, Oyetola has not conceded defeat by refusing to congratulate Adeleke, which, in some quarters, might mean that he would head to court to challenge the latter’s victory.
In his reaction on Sunday, Odeyemi said: “An average Nigerian politician doesn’t accept defeat until they get to the Supreme Court.
“So if anybody is still arguing or going to court over a primary election that has been conducted, and as a matter of fact it’s now at the Appeal Court as you put it, with the overwhelming support of the people of Osun State, you will realize or agree with me that the person is just giving his money to legal people to just for academic exercise.
“We are not bothered. An average politician in Nigerian doesn’t accept defeat; we don’t have the spirit of sportsmanship.
“If you tell them that, they will tell you “but we are not playing football.”
On Adeleke’s victory, Odeyemi said: “It was a revenge of what APC did to us in 2018. If you are a student and prepares very well for an exam, you know you are going to win that exam. That was exactly our own case.
“We were sure of our strategy, we were sure of our campaign. We set up our campaign in such a way we sell as far as to go to Atakumosa Local Government.
“We sold our manifestoes to them. We were able to access our acceptability. We did evangelism. We did house-to-house campaign.”
