PDP claims APC officials in Osun State are planning to assassinate Senator Ademola Adeleke

PEOPLES Democratic Party (PDP) officials have expressed fears that the life of their Osun State gubernatorial candidate Senator Ademola Adeleke is in danger as the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) is seeking to assassinate him.

Senator Adeleke, currently the lawmaker representing Osun West Senatorial District in the senate, is embroiled in a bitter legal battle with Governor Gboyega Oyetola over who governs Osun State. After initial voting in September last year, the Independent National Electoral Commission had declared the contest inconclusive after tight race which ended with Senator Adeleke leading Alhaji Oyetola with just 353 votes.

Inec then organised a supplementary election in seven polling units across four local government areas because it had it had cancelled 3,498 votes. After this re-run in Osogbo, Orolu, Ife North and Ife South local government areas, Inec declared Alhaji Oyetola the winner with a total of 255,505 votes while Senator Adeleke scored 255,023 votes.

However, filed a petition with the election tribunal challenging the result and in March this year, was declared the winner of the September 2018 Osun State gubernatorial election  by the election petitions tribunal in Abuja. Governor Oyetola has, however, appealed this decision and the matter is still pending in court.

With the legal fight very much underway, Kola Ologbondiyan, the PDP's national publicity secretary, claimed that having realised that they could not stop him from retrieving his mandate, some APC people were trying to eliminate Senator Adeleke. He told Nigerians to hold the APC  responsible, if anything happened to Senator Adeleke.

Mr Ologbondiyan said: “Part of the plot is to frame and arrest the principal of Ede Muslim High School, Ede, Mr Kadili Abass, on trumped-up charges that Senator Adeleke’s school testimonial was forged, with the aim of using such fabrication as a basis to smear and clamp down on Adeleke. Nigerians will recall that the PDP had earlier alerted the public that, having failed in their project to brand Adeleke’s certificate as fake, the APC leaders, particularly those operating from Lagos, were weaving a new fabrication that his school testimonial was forged.

“The PDP had also informed the public about how a former commissioner in Osun State was used by the APC leaders to reach and compromise certain top police officers to use the fabrications to arrest and embarrass Adeleke and the principal of Ede Muslim High School even when they have not committed any crime. On Wednesday the police arrested the wife of the school’s registrar, Mrs Rofiyat Oladepo and her nine months old baby."