A governorship aspirant of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Ekiti State, Otunba Oluyinka Akerele, is optimistic about his chances of winning the ticket of the party to contest the 2018 election in the state.
Otunba Oluyinka Akerele spoke while reacting to a newspaper interview by Engineer Segun Oni, a former governor of Ekiti, in which he claimed that he was not imposed by former President Olusegun Obasanjo as the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) flag bearer in the 2007 governorship election in the state.
Mr. Oni, also running on the ticket of the APC for the 2018 election, had said in the interview that although Akerele took the first position in the PDP primary ahead of the 2007 election, he (Oni) eventually became the party’s candidate and later went ahead to win the governorship election.
Speaking through an official of his campaign organization, Ajinde Campaign Organization, Mr. Wale Ojo, in a press statement in Ado – Ekiti, yesterday, Akerele, who was currently on a trip to the United States alongside two key members of his campaign to sell his candidature to the Ekiti people in Diaspora, said he won the 2006 primary election and would win the forthcoming APC primary to become the next Ekiti governor. He called Oni’s version of the 2006 PDP primary as preposterous and an attempt to re-write history.
“Those who we trust and call ‘our leaders’ should stop weaving tangled web when they lie to their followers. I won’t ignore a direct attack”, the governorship aspirant said.
Saying he holds the former governor in high esteem as an elder statesman, Akerele, however, said Oni may have been quoted out of context “as the brazen denial of such a historic event is beyond any individual to attempt to wish away in the name of political joggings”.
He pointed out that he has so much in his plate politically now that he would not want to be distracted by “joy-spoilers on the rampage again”.
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