By Banji Ayoola
Ondo State Governor Oluwarotimi Akeredolu, SAN, has expressed his wish for a peaceful campaign by parties and candidates contesting the October 10 governorship election in the state.
He spoke on Monday after meeting with his party, the All Progressives Congress, APC Election Appeal Committee at the party’s National Secretariat in Abuja.
He advised them to focus on issue based campaign without resorting to violence, noting that his main challenger and candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, Mr Eyitayo Jegede, SAN, are good friends both being members of the inner bar.
His words: “Jegede is my friend. We are colleagues and both members of inner bar, I don’t have anything against him and I just pray that our campaign should be issue based without violence.
“I know that he knows that it will not be easy for him. Yes, it may not be easy for me to win, but by God’s grace, I am going to win.
“I can assure you that as it was in the beginning, so it shall be now and forever more. We will win this election by the grace of God.”
He said the defection of his deputy, Hon Agboola Ajayi, to the opposition PDP would not affect his chances at the poll.
“For me, the deputy leaving the APC to return to the PDP is good radiance to bad rubbish.
“We thought we could accommodate him in the APC, but since he returned to where he truly belongs, it is all well and good. I always wish people the best I can.
“From what I have been told, he has lost the ticket and I pray he won’t jump to another party, but if he does, all well and good.
“However, for his own sake and as a big brother, I will advise him to stay with Jegede and support him very well,” Akeredolu said.
According to him, “Ajayi has made a case that he helped me to win, let him help Jegede to win this time around and that will confirm that he is popular.
“What I know is that he is of no importance, he has no hold on any local government, I can assure you that when the election comes, I will defeat him in his local government and he will never recover from it.
“Let me advise him again to stay with Jegede and let us see what happens.”
He said he was at the National Secretariat to respond to some issues at the Election Appeal Committee.
He said: “I am here at the secretariat because people lodged appeal against my election and emergence from the party primaries and that is why I came around to answer the committee.
“I was told that two aspirants approached the committee to file appeal against me and my mission here is to reply to those appeal.”
