The Osun State election petition tribunal sitting in Oshogbo, yesterday was not only amusing and interesting. It was revealing and like a well-scripted drama in a theater of the absurd, it was full of suspense.
During yesterday’s sitting the Osun state attorney general and commissioner for justice Mr. Niyi Owolade was fingered as one of the thugs notorious for snatching ballot boxes during the state’s gubernatorial election.
The five man panel led by Justice Thomas Naron after listening to the witness asked him if he can recognize any member of the thugs. The witness pointed towards a visibly shaken Mr. Niyi Owolade as the leader of the group. In a shaken tone the attorney general kept repeating the same words several times.
This is not the first time proceedings of the election tribunal have painted a gloomy picture for the Osun state chapter of the Peoples Democratic Party PDP and the embattled governor Olagunsoye Oyinlola, as the tribunal earlier threw out their motion, seeking to ambush the petition of the state’s Action Congress AC gubernatorial candidate in the April 14th election Mr. Rauf Aregbesola.
The AC has secured eight out of nine prayers, ranging from preliminary objections to a motion, a signal that has sent jitters into the spine of the PDP hawks in the state.
The petition itself has assumed the trappings of a celebrated case due to the massive turnout of people at the venue of the tribunal. Intelligence report indicating that the embattled ruling party plans to recruit thugs who would throw the venue into chaos made it witness an unprecedented presence of security personnel, who promptly took over the entire surroundings.
As the Action Congress Party moves closer to occupying the Osun State government house, the image of the PDP in the state is raising more questions than answers. Disgraced former speaker of the house of Representative Patricia Etteh was also exposed at the tribunal last week, as witnesses for the AC revealed how the ruling People’s Democratic Party, PDP in connivance with the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC and the police in Osun state, rigged the April 21 election.
Reports By Femi Soneye
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