RE: CAN THESE GOVERNORS SURVIVE?
We read the February 4 edition of your Magazine, Tell and its cover story with the above caption especially as it affects proceedings at Osun State election petition tribunal.
We wish to let you know that your reporter wrote pure fiction when he said the Action Congress (AC) sought for and got the nod of the tribunal to recount votes “which revealed that multiple thumb printing was rampant in the April 14 polls.” We wish to tell you know that up till this moment, the AC has not asked for and has not got the tribunal’s order to recount any vote. The odds are very much against the AC and they know it.
Indeed, the only votes recount that has been witnessed here was before the second panel handling a state House of Assembly petition filed by the PDP against the AC in Egbedore state constituency. The recount before this panel was at the instance of the PDP and the exercise showed that the PDP was right in asking for it. So, you can see that your reporter got it entirely wrong.
Again, the reporter got it wrong when he referred to Ife Central Local Government and said the PDP polled over 50,000votes there “at a time when students of the Obafemi Awolowo University were not in session.” I expect Tell to have known that OAU, Ile-Ife is a community on its own and that it is not a separate electoral entity on its own. It is sharing two electoral wards with densely populated parts of Ile-Ife. Total votes from OAU was a little over 6,000 which was nothing strange when compared with Chief Bisi Akande’s votes there in the 1999 elections.
We have no problem with the proceedings at the election tribunal and I advise Tell to take interest in the proceedings by asking its reporter to attend in person the tribunal sittings. It is not good enough to write the cover story of a first class Magazine like Tell in a bedroom. Tell can do better than that piece.
We thank you for your support over the years.
Chief Press Secretary to the Governor of Osun state.
