IBADAN- An interest group, League of Progressives for Good Governance in Oyo State, has called on the people of the state to vote for the Accord governorship candidate, Chief Adebayo Adelabu, on Saturday.
Leader of the group, Chief Kunle Sanda, made the disclosure at a news conference on Wednesday in Ibadan.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that Adelabu will be slugging it out with Gov. Seyi Makinde of PDP and Sen. Teslim Folarin of APC during the March 18 governorship election.
Sanda, who described Adelabu as the best among the governorship candidates, called on the people of the state to vote massively for him.
According to him, Adelabu, a former Deputy Governor of Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), is the only candidate with competence, capacity and capability to transform the state.
“Adelabu is not quitting the race. He is the best of the governorship candidates in terms of competence, antecedents and capacity.
“He will run an all-inclusive government and won’t be enemy to Federal Government. We are calling on the people to come out en masse to elect him as the next governor,” he said.
The group, in a speech read by its Secretary, Mr Lekan Adeyemo, faulted the policies of the Makinde-led administration, criticised Folarin’s style and promoted Adelabu’s competence.
It said that the people of the state were at a critical moment where they must collectively reflect on the current pitiable condition of the state.
According to the group, Oyo State has been taken off the radar of development and it has retreated among comity of states in virtually all developmental indices.
The group blamed Makinde for the retrogression, stressing the need to vote out Makinde in the coming election.
“We’ve got to make a choice through our votes this Saturday and it should be stated that Makinde has nothing more to offer us in Oyo State.
“Every patriotic citizen of the state has seen his apparent limitation in term of capacity and capability to deliver on his mandate,” it said.
The group said that Makinde had reneged on the promises made to the people, especially as regards security and the pacesetting status of the state.
“It is unthinkable that a governor, who swore to protect his people, will live them at the mercy of an ex-convict, who ought to be excommunicated in a saner society.
“Complaints were also made on the unprecedented debt burden which the Makinde administration has bequeathed on the state,” it said.
The group also criticised Folarin, describing him as an interloper in the progressive circle.
“It is unfortunate that Folarin, with no known professional career other than politics, could be thrown up to aspire to govern a state as politically sophisticated as Oyo.
“This is a state governed by such intellectual giants as the late Chief Bola Ige and Dr Omololu Olunloyo, a world-acclaimed mathematician and first-class brain,” it said.
The group upheld the candidacy and worthiness of Adelabu of Accord, saying that he was a candidate to beat.
It said that Adelabu had the progressive ideology to make the state progress, even as it encouraged residents to vote the man with vast experience in corporate governance and development.
It also bemoaned the spate of alignment and endorsements of Makinde and Folarin in the state.
“Another sad development in our body polity today is the ongoing series of alignments, realignments and endorsement of Makinde and Folarin by some political parties and politicians,” the group said. (NAN)
