Osun Gov Poll: APC, PDP Confident Of Victory

The governorship candidate of the All Progressives Congress, Adegboyega Oyetola, has said he is confident of victory in today’s governorship election holding in Osun State.

In the same way, the flag bearer of the Peoples Democratic Party, Senator Ademola Adeleke, has expressed the confidence of winning the poll which is holding in 3763 polling units in the 30 local government areas of the state.

Apart from the two candidates, the governorship candidate of the Accord Party, Dr Akin Ogunbiyi; the candidate of the Labour Party, Lasun Yusuf and 11 other candidates are contesting in the poll.

The Oyetola, who spoke through his Chief Press Secretary, Ismail Omipidan, said on Friday that incumbent governor was confident of victory because he had done very well in the past four years and the people of the state would reward him with victory at the poll.

He said, ” We have nothing to fear because the governor has performed creditably well in the past four years and we are confident of victory at the poll.”

The presidential candidate of the PDP, Atiku Abubakar, who led the party’s campaign in Osogbo on Thursday said, the opposition party was sure of victiry.

Atiku said, “Our victory in Osun, by God’s grace and the overwhelming decision of the electorate, will send a strong message to the ruling APC party that their reign has come to an end. APC’s loss in Osun is a win for the people of the state. It is when the people win that the PDP can truly boast of victory. And that is the promise that the PDP holds, not just in Osun but everywhere else.”

Meanwhile, some residents told THE WHISTLER on Friday that some of the parties started “pre-election vote-buying to beat security agents on the election day.

Some residents of Osogbo said they had been paid N5,000 ahead of the poll. Two of them however said the payment was given to some of them who were trusted to vote for them.

Meanwhile, the Kimpact Development Initiative has said vote-trading is one of the factors that will increase the number of invalid votes in Saturday governorship election in Osun State.

The Senior Programme Manager, John Adebayo, said this at the pre-election press briefing in Osogbo on Friday.

He said, ” There are some factors responsible for high number of invalid votes in elections and vote buying is one of them.

“Some voters will deliberately vote for Party A and Party B to satisfy their conscience because they have collected money from the two.”

The group also said it had observed that turnout had been dwindling since 2015 in the off season governorship elections.

He said aside this, illiteracy usually play a role in high number of void votes.

Adebayo also said some parties had started engaging in transactional endorsement of governorship candidates which he described as another level of vote-buying.

Meanwhile, some residents have said they may not go out to vote in today’s election because of the fear of violence.

Some residents of Ede town said they might stay back at home because there might be violence.

One of them, Kamoru Ogundayo, said “Some hoodlums were arrested in Osogbo on Friday because of their plans to cause violence during the election.

“How are we sure that there won’t problem today? I will only go and vote only if I observe that there is not crisis u til around 12noon”