Honourable Oladipupo Adebutu’s Albatross

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has said any Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) member in Ogun State campaigning for elective position without being on the candidates’ list released by the electoral umpire “is on his or her own” as the body has nothing to do with such. Mr. Festus Okoye, INEC National Commissioner for Information, Media and Voter Education, said this while featuring on Citizens’ Forum, a programme aired by the Rock City 101.9 FM, Abeokuta, Ogun State. Honourable Oladipupo Adebutu, a member of the House of Representatives and some of his supporters have been campaigning for various offices despite not making the list of candidates released by INEC. Adebutu has been at loggerheads with Senator Buruji Kashamu, PDP’s governorship candidate in Ogun State, over the governorship ticket. According to Okoye, only members of the PDP whose names were on the list released by INEC were the genuine candidates of the party, adding that others were mere pretenders. Okoye said, “Our position is that the INEC received judgments of properly constituted courts of law and we have given effect to the judgments that we have. The judgments that we have asked the INEC to recognize the list of candidates submitted by a particular faction of the PDP in Ogun State. We have recognized the candidates submitted by that particular political party and we have published the names of those candidates recognized by the court. So, it is the names of those candidates that have been published. Any other individual, outside that particular list, who is campaigning for any position whatsoever, is on his or her own. The INEC has nothing to do with that. We have obeyed the law. We have published the list of candidates that we were asked to publish based on court order and we have done what the law requires us to do.”
This we learnt has been causing some sleepless nights for honorable Oladipupo Adebutu.