Ahead of the Presidential and National Assembly elections holding on Saturday, the Oyo State gubernatorial candidate of the Alliance for Democracy (AD), Engr. Oyedele Hakeem Alao (OHA) popularly known as ‘Allow Alao’ has asked his supporters across the state to cast their votes for President Muhammadu Buhari of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the election.
The AD flag-bearer, gave this directive at a press briefing addressed by him on Monday at his Oke-Itunu, Mokola, Ibadan campaign office and said that the directive followed the go-ahead given to the states’ chapters of the party by its national headquarters to adopt any presidential candidate of their choice based on peculiarities of each state.
At the press conference which also had in attendance the Director-General of OHA Campaign organization, Barr. Tajudeen Ademola Adeniji and the acting state chairman of the party, Comrade Adeola Adepoju, Engr. Alao maintained that President Buhari towers above his main opponent in the Saturday election because of his spartan life style and impeccable integrity.
According to him, “the current President of the country came into office about four years ago and he has been doing his best to put the country on the right track. He has been vilified, condemned and abused variously, especially by the opposition parties, who consider his best not good enough for the country.
“Unfortunately and very sadly too, the most voiceferous of all the critics have been the PDP, the very party under whose watch the country was run aground. No doubt about the fact that the ‘magical expectations’ of the people when electing Gen. Muhammadu Buhari in 2015 have not been met and this informs the barrage of criticisms that are trailing his presidency.
“I refer to the people’s expectations as magical because only magics are performed with visible results without no much known processes. And what are the usual results of magics? They are ephemeral, unsustainable and lack durability. Asking for the cleaning of the mess created in 16 years within four years is magical and lacks process.
“It is visible to all that PMB has in the last almost four years began to lay the foundation of a new Nigeria and to halt the process now will amount to taking back the country to the years of locust, pilfering and shameful pillage of the commonwealth. We can’t shy away from the economic hardship being faced by the masses, but, we have to thank our stars for the kind of leader we have in PMB.
“The crash in oil price which led to recession in the country out of which we got out after few months has rendered Venezuela prostrate till now. Unfortunately and regrettably, just before the election that produced PMB, the then government of the day being run by the PDP under Dr. Goodluck Jonathan depleted the foreign reserve from about $60bn to an abysmally low level of about $30bn leaving the new government to be gasping for breath.
“As a nation, we are yet to attain the desired level, but, we have a leader that means well for this country, whatever may be his shortcomings. Just as they recently admitted, the change promised in 2015 is a process and the process has since begun”, he added.
Relying heavily on the testimony given about Alhaji Atiku Abubakar of the PDP by his former boss, former President Olusegun Obasanjo in his book, ‘My Watch’ and the unproductive sales of national assets while leading the Bureau of Public Enterprise (BPE)
the AD gubernatorial candidate said the PDP standard-bearer carries moral burden to convince Nigerians that his reign would not be unmitigated disaster.
Engr. Alao also recalled the gruesome murder of the late Chief Bola Ige in 2001 while serving the government headed by Chief Obasanjo and Alhaji Abubakar stressing that the inability of the then government to find the killers remains unanswered question by the duo of Obasanjo and Abubakar,
He said, “I’m very passionate about Chief Bola Ige because I was a beneficiary of his party’s- Unity Party of Nigeria (UPN) Free Education programme and a true born Yoruba child, which is why I still ask today that who killed Bola Ige and why was he killed from the duo of former President Olusegun Obasanjo and his deputy under whose watch the crime was committed”?
