•Olabisi Adu
The deputy governorship candidate of the Labour Party in the last governorship elections in Ondo State, Olabisi Adu- Okunniyi, has hinted that the Labour Party and Obi-dient Movement are set to mobilise stakeholders towards saving democracy in Ondo State.
She disclosed this in a statement issued yesterday signed by her media assistant, Olubori Obafemi, and made available to The Frontier.
She strongly condemned massive vote buying and pockets of ballot boxes snatching during last Saturday election.
“At the end of our Stakeholders’ consultation, it was popularly resolved that an inclusive Mobilisation Committee be urgently set up to initiate a political shadow team to mobilise the good people of Ondo State, especially the Youths, Civil Society and the Obi-dients to engage those in power and put them constantly on their toes in the interest of mass prosperity of the people of Ondo State and to halt a situation where government is used as a business to make the people poor to be able to induce them with peanuts during elections” Olabisi Adu said.
According to her, the electoral mandate from such induced voting and perverse process cannot be deemed sacred and credible to breed accountable governance for the people of Ondo State.
The consultative meeting with other political stakeholders, she said, was held to assess the integrity of the last governorship elections in the state.
The political Amazon of the Obi-dient Movement said it is a huge shame and mockery for Nigeria’s democracy and elections to discover that political mandate in Nigeria can only be achieved by vote purchase, ballot box stuffing and falsification of results, which are pillars of subversions of the real will and true mandate of the people.
While reacting to the innocent confession of a local woman, who said in a viral interview on a national television that she was paid by the All Progressive Congress, APC, for her vote, Dame Olabisi Adu wondered how any good thing can come out of a corruptive electoral process, affirming that vote buying and induced voting of any sort is a criminal offence punishable under the electoral act of Nigeria
She said to save democracy in Ondo State, concerned stakeholders at the meeting resolved not to go to sleep but to be more vigilant to rescue democracy from the clutches of predatory and transactional politicians, who are bent on weaponising poverty and impoverishing the ordinary people so as to make them easy prey to buy with peanuts during elections, since the people have been pauperised by those in government to the point of desperation for survival.
