Fayose caused PDP’s loss in Ekiti governorship poll – Ikimi
Tom Ikimi, a chieftain of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has blamed former governor Ayodele Fayose for the party’s loss at the Saturday’s governorship in Ekiti state.
PDP’s candidate Bisi Kolawole emerged the second runner-up, trailing Segun Oni of the Social Democratic Party, in the election won by Abiodun Oyebanji of the ruling All Progressives Congress.
Oni had left the PDP to join the SDP after losing out at the party primaries, while alleging Fayose manipulated the process in favour of his preferred candidate, Kolawole.
In his reaction to the poll outcome, Ikimi said the party’s “problem in Ekiti has been caused by the activities of our past governor, Ayo Fayose”.
“He ruined the place before he left office. He insisted on putting his candidate with all kinds of struggles, even though we persuaded him to do otherwise.
“He ended up, on the election day, rolling on the floor and crying but that did not get us anywhere.”
Ikimi, who was one of the founding members of the APC before joining the PDP, equally faulted the process that produced Kolawole.
“The build-up to the choice of the candidate in Ekiti was a big struggle.
“All kinds of meetings, peace interventions, until we had the heart to push away Segun Oni, who went to SDP that was not known here. The outcome is clear,” he stated.
Meanwhile, Segun Oni has rejected the APC victory in the poll. Moses Jolayemi, his campaign spokesperson, alleged the APC engaged in vote buying.
“The outcome is unacceptable to us as a party because it is a travesty of democracy; it is a rape on democracy and clear daylight robbery. The APC has taken advantage of the peoples’ pathetic state of poverty, and that is why the APC refused to campaign. They were not going round doing rallies; we were the ones campaigning because they knew what they wanted to do.
“Their strategy was simple: buy these peoples’ votes and that is why they kept the people in perpetual poverty so that they can be of use every four years.”
