The Olusola Oke Campaign Committee, on Friday alleged that some unnamed ministers were plotting to rig the election for the All Peoples Congress (APC) governorship candidate in Ondo State, Mr Rotimi Akeredolu.
However, the Oluwarotimi Akeredolu Governorship Campaign Organisation described the allegation as cheap blackmail and baseless, saying Oke had accepted defeat before the election.
The Oke Campaign Organisation, which stated this in Akure, disclosed that all arrangements had been concluded by some serving ministers to use part of the N10 billion infrastructural contract to rig the election in favour of the APC candidate.
The chairman of the Publicity Committee of the organisation, Mr Kolawole Olabisi, said in a statement that the plan was hatched in in Abuja wherein a bogus contract was without due process mooted for Owo area of the state, while a substantial part of the money would be used towards rigging the election.
Olabisi stated in the statement said “the boast of APC, which had been sedentary in its approach to canvassing for votes in the state, is that they would rig this election, even if only one vote is cast for them. They have been preaching it and now they have professed it with this dastard plan perfected and supervised by the top echelons of the government to use government funds to make good their threat.
“We want to appeal to President Muhammadu Buhari to be aware of what is being done by members of his cabinet in their vaunted ambition to win this election at all cost and immediately arrest the situation.
“While we have been going round the state canvassing for votes from the people, they have remained in their offices boasting that they will use federal might to rig the election, even if nobody vote for them.
“The APC members in Ondo State have been preaching this strange gospel of rigging and we are now amazed by this latest antics to win the election with the award of a strange contract for a whopping N10 billion for Owo community where Akeredolu hails from, with a view to releasing a whopping sum of N7 billion to him to make the rigging plan a reality.
However, the Akeredolu Campaign Organisation, in a statement issued by Chairman of the Campaign Research and Communication Committee, Mr. Soji Alakuro, said no amount of blackmail would stop the party from winning.
The statement reads, “It will be recalled that Oke and one of his main supporters were behind the crisis in APC before it was resolved.
“They intentionally painted the process of the September 3, 2016 APC primary as being fraudulent by asking journalists to interview Oke’s cook and one of his brother from Ilaje who pretended to be delegates.
“They were declared wanted by the security operatives after Akeredolu officially laid a complaint on the allegation and after it was exposed to the whole world that they lied against our candidate.
“Oke is afraid because he knows that his political trick by running to the Alliance for Democracy (AD) to contest cannot change the mind of the electorate, who have made up their minds to vote for APC.
“We also challenge Oke to explain the source of his funds because we are aware of those governors oiling his campaign through their states resources.
“It is unfortunate that Oke, who raised the allegation that N7billion project had been diverted to the campaign of Akeredolu, failed to mention where the project will be cited in Owo and the kind of project that will be executed in that ancient community.