Ahead of the Saturday’s by-election to fill the vacant seat of Oorelope state constituency in the Oyo State House of Assembly, one of the leaders of the Labour Party in the local government, Alhaji Sarafadeen Alani Yusuff, has accused the All Progressives Congress (APC)-led government in the state of plans to cause violence in the local government in order to win the poll “at all costs.”
But the caretaker chairman of the local government, Honourable Samuel Okunlade, said the accusation was baseless and untrue, noting that “APC and our governor have always been known for peace and we cannot be linked to violence over a by-election in a local government that has since become fully APC.”
It will be recalled that the former occupant of the seat, Dr Gideon Aremu, who was elected on the platform of the Labour Party, was murdered early July.
Yusuff, popularly known as Al Wajud, in a chat with the Nigerian Tribune, urged President Muhammadu Buhari to call his party and Governor Abiola Ajimobi to order, noting that Labour Party members “want peace and we want our votes to count. We want one man, one vote, but the APC has been threatening us with power of incumbency and state might.”
He further noted that since Buhari and the APC got to power based on a free and fair election, the party in the state should allow same in Oorelope.
Yusuff boasted that “Labour Party is in control of the local government” and would win any election in the council area.
However, Okunlade maintained that Labour Party members were jittery because they knew they would lose the poll; noting that the state government had not meddled with the politics of the local government in any way.