Groundswell Of Clamour To Investigate Ladi Adebutu On Alleged March 18 Vote Buying

<h4>Groundswell Of Clamour To Investigate Ladi Adebutu<&sol;h4>&NewLine;<p>OpenLife Nigeria reproduces an article by Ibukun Odumefu which explores a groundswell move to investigate Ladi Adebutu of the Peoples Democratic Party&comma; PDP on the allegation of vote buying in the March 18 guber election in Ogun State<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><em><strong>From Ladi Adebutu’s comical pantomime at INEC’s office in Abeokuta&comma; a disconcerting truth manifests for the umpteenth time&colon; that Nigerian politicians are mostly sore losers&period; Haunted by hubris&comma; they approach every election with an impossible conviction to win&comma; even when the run of play manifests convincingly to their defeat&period;<&sol;strong><&sol;em><&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><em><strong>The desperate and diabolical measures embarked upon by Labi Adebutu&comma; the People’s Democratic Party&comma; PDP’s governorship candidate in Ogun State&comma; to win the election held last Saturday&comma; March 18&comma; has left many people aghast and disturbed&period;<&sol;strong><&sol;em><&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><em><strong>Governor Dapo Abiodun of the All Progressives Congress&comma; APC&comma; was declared the winner of the keenly contested election&period; But Adebutu and his party did not go down without showing their proclivity for the unorthodox in their desperation to appropriate Ogun State&period; Adebutu&comma; a former House of Representatives member&comma; is the son of one of Ogun State’s wealthiest men&comma; the Lotto billionaire&comma; Chief Kessington Adebutu&period;<&sol;strong><&sol;em><&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><em><strong>Widely perceived as haughty and aloof&comma; the rotund politician battled tooth and nail before he could get the PDP governorship ticket&period; It was not until January 2023 that the Supreme Court ruled in a case instituted by Jimi Lawal and Segun Sowunmi over the legality of Adebutu’s emergence as the party’s candidate&period; Lawal and Sowunmi had emerged as parallel candidates in elections organised by different factions of the party&period;<&sol;strong><&sol;em><&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><em><strong>With the ticket in his clutch and his father’s deep pocket&comma; Adebutu reckoned that the battle was already half-won&period; On election day proper&comma; operatives of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency &lpar;NDLEA&rpar; intercepted four PDP party agents with preloaded money in credit cards in Ogun State&period; The cards had the inscription&semi; Caroline Foundation&period;<&sol;strong><&sol;em><&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><em><strong>Caroline Adebutu&comma; who died on Monday&comma; January 9&comma; 2023&comma; at 83&comma; was Ladi’s mother&period; Though the family is known for its vast charity works&semi; the foundation is&comma; however&comma; non-existent underscoring the fact that it was established for the sole purpose of vote buying&period;<&sol;strong><&sol;em><&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><em><strong>In a statement by Femi Babafemi&comma; spokesman of the NDLEA&comma; &OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;Operatives of NDLEA on election duty stop and search&comma; just intercepted four party agents with hundreds of money credit cards&comma; to buy votes at Ibara housing estate&comma; Ogun State&period; Each card contains 10k and is activated to cash with a code&period;” Babafemi stated further that the Chief Executive of NDLEA&comma; Buba Marwa&comma; has directed that they should be handed over to the police after proper documentation&period;<&sol;strong><&sol;em><&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><em><strong>Regarded as a bizarre dimension to vote buying in the history of Nigerian elections&comma; what obtained prior was cash as a means of exchange&period; However&comma; the naira redesign policy&comma; which the PDP presidential candidate&comma; Alhaji Atiku Abubakar&comma; vehemently supported&comma; stating that it would curb the incidence of vote buying&comma; became the Achilles heel of his party in Ogun State&period; Like Adebutu&comma; Atiku also lost his fifth bid for the Nigerian presidency to the APC’s Bola Ahmed Tinubu&period;<&sol;strong><&sol;em><&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><em><strong>It is in the wake of this that there is a groundswell of clamour that Adebutu and members of his party should be investigated for their involvement or otherwise in the scandal&period;<&sol;strong><&sol;em><&sol;p>&NewLine;