Former chief of staff, Hon. Tony Okocha says it was not because of Tinubu’s choice of a fellow Muslim, Kashim Shittema as Vice Presidential candidate that caused the defeat of the APC in the recent Osun State governorship election.
Okocha in a release circulated in Whatsapp took s swipe at those claiming that the APC Governorship candidate Gboyega Oyetola lost the Osun election because of the party’s Muslim/Muslim ticket.
He wondered what criteria they adopted in arriving at their conclusion, stressing that they did not carry out a postmortem analysis before coming out with their ‘hasty’ conclusion.
“Was there a debate that churned out a preponderance of opinion tilting to and leading to the hasty conclusion? Did they administer questionnaires on the citizenries of Osun upon which the balance tilted to the fact of the purchased bigotry?” he queried, stressing that such thinking without any rational proof was regrettably unfortunate.
The Rivers State Coordinator of Bola Ahmed Tinubu Vanguard (BAT-V) said adherents of the illogic could carry on with their nonsensical tirade, stressing it would amount to nothing.
“It is an established aphorism that one should not be bothered plenty with how much a spoken truth can hurt, but bother seriously with those who could have been misled if the truth wasn’t told”, he reasoned.
According to Okocha, the people of Osun State were politically conscious, adding that in politics people are known to vote according to their conscience and resist vehemently, even violently, any perceived attempt to thwart the peoples’ view through what he called uncanny electoral process.
“Because of this high political awareness and consciousness, it’s usually not an ice walk for any elected leader. We saw the near defeat of Governor Rauf Aregbesola during his second tenure bid”.
“True to type, because of the ‘not-too-well performance of Rauf Aregbesola, the election of the noew defeated Governor Oyetola, was a ding-dong affair, infact, it was argued that the 2018 Governorship Election was won by Senator Adeleke but for the crude political maneuvering of the ruling APC National Government”.
The former Amaechi’s ally expressed regret that Governor Oyetola was sworn-in and controlled the rims of power but could not deliver the dividends of democracy to the consternation of the mass of the Osun people stressing that instead of managing meager resources of Government and maintain convivial reach with the people, the negative allure of power took over him.
“Meanwhile, Senator Adeleke kept touch with the people, attend and as is usual of him danced at parties organized by high, middle and low classes”, he said.
Waxing lyrical, Okocha said Adeleke extended arms to the poor, adding that his small cousin, the celebrated Davido, organized shows and did what he called “give aways” to the minimally advantaged.
“A day of recompense for good or bad came and the pendulum swung to the direction of the masses oriented candidate, Senator Adeleke” he said.
The BAT-V coordinator gave credit for the success of the election in Osun State to the electoral reforms, particularly the introduction of BVAS machine which he said obliterated substantially electoral manipulations.
Waving aside the conclusions of critics as regards the election, Okocha said what was certain was that the defeat of the APC in the Osun election was a wake-up call to those in authority not to treat the people within the prescient of their authority with ignominy.
