Barrister Kayode Ajulo has given reasons for the defeat of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the last Saturday Ondo governorship election.
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) declared Governor Rotimi Akeredolu the governor-elect in Ondo poll.
INEC Returning Officer, Prof Idowu Olayinka, declared the candidate of the All Progressives Congress(APC) winner with 292,830 votes.
Candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Eyitayo Jegede polled 195,791 while Agboola Ajayi of the Zenith Labour Party (ZLP) scored 69,127 votes.
Ajulo explained that the failure of PDP to have to a united house for the election led to its defeat.
According to the legal luminary, several Governors within the umbrella of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) supported the candidate of the Zenith Labor Congress (ZLP) Barr. Agboola Ajayi who left the PDP for the ZLP after the conduct of the Party’s Primary after he lost to Eyitayo Jegede SAN.
He also explained that the party would have had a better shot at winning if the party flag bearer had emulated the tactic of APC flag bearer who stoop to conquer by making peace with all his old and new adversaries.
” I’m disturbed that the PDP flag bearer failed to be on the same page with his former Principal, Dr. Olusegun Mimiko and this unfortunately helped Arakunrin Akeredolu, SAN fortunes as PDP went into the election with a cracked wall.
”Where are all State Governors and national party leaders of the party, they even tried to beat up Ayodele Fayose during one of the campaign rallies,” he said.
Speaking on the general conduct of the poll, Ajulo said the election was characterised by issue of vote buying on election day.
Against the popular notion that the case of vote buying was only common to the All Progressive Congress (APC), he said that all the parties were equally guity in the process, particularly the three leading political parties, APC, PDP & ZLP tried in the game of outspending and overreaching one another.
He explained that the only difference was the financial strategy, wit and coordination of the political parties involved to facilitate this act.
The Abuja based lawyer also praised the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) for the peaceful conduct of the election in the State while also enjoining the body to strive to do better in subsequent elections in the Country.
