Nigeria Content Online

The Oyo State
Governor, Adebayo Alao Akala, on Tuesday, urged opposition parties to
win elections at polling booths rather than running to the courts to
claim victories.

According to a
statement released through his Special Adviser on Public
Communications, Dotun Oyelade, the governor noted that the opposition
will be doing injustice to democracy “if it depends on judicial
technicalities rather that win legitimately through popular votes as he
has done.” The governor promised the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) of
winning all the elections that will hold in the state in 2011, noting
that the political events in the last three and a half years in the
state are direct testimony to his claims.

The governor
boasted that, with the lack of focus from the opposition and support
from the people, the election will be a walk over. “As a direct result
of what the administration has been able to achieve in three and a half
years, the support of the people and the lack of focus of the
opposition, his electoral performance will be better next year,” he
said. He also bragged that he will win the elections not only at the
gubernatorial level but also national and state elections for the
party. He further argued that the only strategy opposition parties in
the state will use is to “raise spurious evidence of election
malpractices against him to thwart his victory at the Election
Petitions Tribunal next year.”

The statement recalled that “when the strategy was used against him
at Election Petition Tribunal of the 2007 polls, the appellate court
restored about 100,000 votes earlier expunged from his votes by the
tribunal.” According to the governor, that was “a clear indication that
the election was won fair and square.”