The Transition Committee of the Peoples Democratic Party in Osun State’s comparison of Governor Adegboyega Oyetola to a former United States President, Donald Trump, on Sunday led to an exchange of words between the committee and the All Progressives Congress.
A statement by the spokesperson for governor-elect, Olawale Rasheed, on Sunday admitted that the chairman of the PDP Transition Committee, Dr Muyiwa Oladimeji, labelled Oyetola as Trump at a function and justified the PDP stalwart’s position.
The party accused Oyetola of working to frustrate the handover of power on November 27, saying the incumbent governor, like ex-US President, denied losing the election.
The statement read in part, “We first want to take the liberty to list five reasons why the outgoing governor is every inch a Trumpist and even likely worst as noted by Dr Muyiwa Oladimeji, an accomplished professional and Chairman of Ademola Adeleke Transition Committee.
“We must point out further that when the July 16 results were out in public attested and authenticated as valid, the governor was still claiming a win. At a time his party members were already accepting electoral loss as traceable to several factors, the governor was holding fast to his ‘anigbele’ agenda exactly like a Trump who is still delusional and thinks he was rigged out.
“Any leader who electorally failed by all standards, whose loss was acknowledged by his leaders but who remains adamant and intransigent, is beyond a Trump. As he opposes democracy, his garb may become that of the Italian Benito Mussolini.
“Pressing the matter further, Trump in pursuance of his ‘election denier’ launched out to manufacture fake votes and alibi to remain in power. In Osun, Governor Oyetola and his propagandists orchestrated a fake election result tabulation to purportedly claim victory. The search for votes was desperately pursued but for the democratic alertness of the mandate holder, Senator Ademola Adeleke.
“We must elaborate further by calling attention to the attempted mutilation of American governance structures when Trump discovered the political end has come. The governor looks every inch like a good student of Mr Trump. If that behaviour is not Trumpist, is it that of Brazilian Jair Bolsonaro?”
However, the Special Adviser to Osun State Chairman of the APC, Kola Olabisi, reacting to Oladimeji’s comparing Oyetola to Trump in another statement, said there was no basis for comparing Oyetola with Trump as the former is an ardent believer in the rule of law, being the reason why he approached the tribunal, challenging the victory of Adeleke with facts and figures.
It read, “We won’t join the fray in insulting Dr Oladimeji just the way he had done to Governor Oyetola but we shall not fail to point to the PDP chieftain and Defender-in-Chief of a controversial governor-elect that it would be more dignifying for him to make his point(s) without necessarily describing a sitting governor as being ‘intransigent’.
“Was Dr Oladimeji not worried that by the time he was vilifying Governor Oyetola on Thursday, another sitting Oyo State PDP Governor, Seyi Makinde, was busy praise-singing Oyetola at the joint flag-off of the reconstruction and rehabilitation of the 91-kilometre Osogbo-Iwo-Ibadan Road with fanfare in Osogbo?
“It wasn’t for fun that Governor Makinde did not bother to look at the venue of the PDP’s presentation of the one-legged transition committee report which is not better than a worthless piece of paper as the contents were predicated on conjectures and unofficial information illegally sourced from some disgruntled civil servants. “The PDP handlers and their governor-elect should desist from fouling the media space by strangely making indecorous and inapposite noise by shouting and roaring over the legal activities of Governor Oyetola to create a false impression against the people’s governor.”