Victor Ogunje in Ado Ekiti
The Segun Oni Campaign Organisation has appealed to the leadership of the driver unions in Ekiti State to work hard and prevent their members from being recruited as political thugs during the June 18 governorship poll.
The Social Democratic Party(SDP) campaign structure described commercial driving as a noble profession that should not be subjected to thuggery, saying he is ready to work with the drivers to make Ekiti better if elected governor.
This coming as former governor Segun Oni and the SDP candidate accused the two dominant parties of planning to unleash members of the driver unions on SDP, which has been enjoying soaring popularity in the state.
In a statement, in Ado Ekiti yesterday, Oni said: “It will be recalled that the leadership of the driver unions have in the past two months made it mandatory for all the drivers to paste Biodun Oyebanji’s, the APC candidate big sticker on their vehicles as a support, while at the same time forcing the drivers to pay sums ranging between N1,500 and N2,000. Any driver who rebuffed are barred from operating their legitimate business.
“We are not saying people should not have sympathies for APC or PDP candidate, but they should not make SDP an enemy. Don’t allow any politician to recruit you as thugs to disrupt the coming election that Segun Oni will win with the support of Ekiti people, including the drivers”.
Meanwhile, a pro-Oni group under the acronym “Ekiti Build Back Better (EBBB)”, has slammed the PDP candidate, Hon. Bisi Kolawole, for calling the former governor, Segun Oni a nomadic politician for crossing from PDP to SDP to realise his political ambition.
Kolawole, had in a radio programme last Tuesday in the state chided the defection of Oni from PDP to SDP, “after the compromised January 26 PDP primary election,” describing the SDP candidate as a “nomadic politician.”
The spokesman of the group, Idowu Adelusi, in Ado-Ekiti, the state capital, said: “Calling Oni a nomadic politician is like the pot calling a kettle black.
“If you want to see the original nomadic politician, it is in your backyard.”
Adelusi said the decision and eventual movement of Oni to the SDP was not about himself, but the collective decision of the Ekiti people, explaining that “previous attempts at a third force in Ekiti failed because the situation then did not call for it.”
Adelusi asserted that winning the election with the third force by Oni will surprise the likes of Kolawole in the PDP and other skeptics.
Adelusi said Oni’s ambition is Ekiti people’s project and that it was “thoroughly understood with the influx of supporters of Oni from the PDP and the APC into SDP, besides army of supporters among government workers, pensioners, artisans, traders, teachers, professionals and students.”
