Chief Tunde Odanye, the Alliance for Democracy (AD) candidate in the 2007 Osun state governorship poll has dismissed as an effort in futility the attempts by the Action Congress (AC) candidate , Rauf Aregbesola, to win through what he called back door, the mandate given to Goveror Olagunsoye Oyinlola, by the electorate.

Odanye, in an interview with Daily Sun, blamed Aregbosola’s lawyers for misleading him in a case that is already beyond redemption. According to him, “As a lawyer, If I have a case and I know it does not have much merit and my opponent defeats me, I am not likely to hide the fact that I was defeated. His lawyers would have told him he has a bad case. But if my client insists on going to court, I will go to court. The problem is that many Nigerians never accept defeat even when they are obviously wrong.

Giving an insight into the contentious poll, Odanye who has since left AD for the PDP said: “The areas that he is complaining about, where he said they inflated all PDP votes, which actually are PDP strongholds is natural, because everybody inflates votes in areas where he has a stronghold, just like Aregbesola also inflated where he had a stronghold.

He is not contesting the results of those areas where he is said to have inflated votes and won. He is contesting the areas where he could not inflate votes and win. If at the end of the day, the election is adjudged to be unfair, they will likely say that a re-run should be conducted, and I assure you that if they do a re-run, the votes will be more in favour of Oyinlola because people have now started seeing things in AC, and Aregbesola which they had not seen before.”
Excerpts:

Defection to the PDP
I did not abandon the Alliance for Democracy (AD). Those who were elected into office as governors in 1999 killed AD and made a lot of people to leave the party. Our former governors, ably led by the former governor of Lagos State, Bola Ahmed Tinubu who for his own political gains felt that for him to be able to effectively control a party of his own, he wanted AD out of existence, and of course he created his own faction.

If you doubt what I am telling you, you will see that not only did they leave AD to form AC; they refused to let AD be, by constantly setting booby traps and creating trouble for the party. They left one of their leaders, Chief Michael Koleosho who is an Action Congress (AC) member to contest the chairmanship with those who are genuine AD members. And of course, the strategy did not help our fortunes. So at the end of the day, they messed us up.

With politics, you have got to be real, you either continue in something that is leading nowhere or you have to be realistic and be in a place where you believe you can make a difference. Unfortunately, AD has been badly knocked off which left me with AC and PDP, and between PDP and AC; the choice is easy because PDP is a much better alternative than the AC.

If you ask me, AC is nothing but a bad version of PDP, it took the walls of the PDP and AD to form AC, and they do not have the culture of AD neither do they have the understanding of PDP.
My leaving AD was not abandonment. After I contested in 2007, I had thought I was going into political retirement, but the leaders of the PDP who felt I had many things to contribute wooed me, and the convincing part was when my people insisted that they wanted me to help improve things.

Most of my colleagues in the AD who were not happy with the way things were, also joined the PDP, they refused to go the AC, but most importantly, AC may be making a lot of noise on the pages of the newspapers, but those of us who are politicians know the truth. They practice in a harsher version, those things that they accuse PDP of, the internal democracy of PDP may not be perfect, but it is certainly much better than that of the AC. The ownership of PDP does not lie with one person; whereas we all know that the ownership of the AC lies with one person.

Again, if you look at the South West, you will notice that most of the PDP governors carry out progressive and social welfare programmes. From Ogun to Osun to Ekiti, you will discover that the programmes the governors are running are the same programmes that AD ran. You cannot win an election today without offering free education, health and so on, irrespective of which party you belong

PDP lack of internal democracy
The internal democracy in PDP is not perfect. However it is not peculiar to PDP alone. I challenge anybody to prove me wrong, that in PDP, nobody can say who is going to be the Presidential or gubernatorial candidate in any PDP controlled state, where the governor is not running for a second term. Even when governors are going for a second term, it is still possible that the incumbent does not win the elections.

In the AC, we all know who their candidates are going to be. In Lagos State, we know that Fashola will be AC’s candidate in 2011, but no one knows who the PDP candidate in Lagos will be in Osun State. if Fayemi does not win the case, we all know that he will be the AC flag bearer in 2011, and in Osun State, if Aregbesola does not win his case, everyone knows he will be the AC candidate in the forthcoming election, but no one can say who will be the PDP candidate in Osun State and it goes on and on.

What I am saying is that there is so much contest for PDP positions because no one person can mandate a candidate in PDP. But in other parties like AC, if Bola Tinubu says Atiku is not going to be the presidential candidate in 2011, he is not going to be which is why Atiku himself is looking for options. One can say that PDP has some major blocks, like Saraki in Kwara and a few others, but no one has complete control over the party. In PDP, you can win primaries in spite of the incumbent; it has happened many times before, but it can never happen in AC or other parties.

See the battle that is raging in Anambra State, where two brothers are at loggerheads. If there was already an anointed candidate, no one will bother wasting resources to contest primaries.
Aregbesola is fighting lost battle
I am a lawyer. If I have a case and I know it does not have much merit and my opponent defeats me, I am not likely to hide the fact that I was defeated. I would have told him he has a bad case, but if my client insists on going to court, I will go to court. The problem is that many Nigerians never accept defeat even when they are obviously wrong. It is ridiculous.

I am not God, but I find it difficult to see how Aregbesola will win. To win an election, you must not only have the majority, you must have at least 25 percent of two-thirds of the local governments.
There are thirty local governments in Osun State and two-thirds of it is 20. For Aregbesola to be declared winner, he needs to have the majority, and 25 percent in 20 Local Governments.

He has gone to court to contest 10, whereby he feels if he does not have those 10, he will still have a slight majority on the 20 and will also have the 10 which he is trying to get from the back door what he was not able to get from the front.

If Aregbesola felt that he had such a good case, I do not think he will come out with a fake police report. Anybody that has had dealings with the police will know that the report was very fake. In police force, there are four departments; A, B, C and D. A is Administration and they prepare reports, B is operations and it does not prepare reports, C is intelligence and D is Legal. So if Aregbesola’s report were actually prepared by the police, B department wouldn’t have been written on it because it is the intelligence which is ‘C’ department that should have done it.

The areas that he is complaining about where he said they inflated all PDP votes, which actually are PDP strongholds is natural because everybody inflates votes in areas where he has a stronghold, just like Aregbesola also inflated where he had a stronghold.
He is not contesting the results of those areas where he is said to have inflated votes and won, he is contesting the areas where he could not inflate votes and win.

http://www.sunnewsonline.com/webpages/politics/2009/oct/07/politics-07-10-2009-002.htm

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