Date Published: 02/10/11

Akala vows to fight withdrawal of candidacy

Governor Adebayo Alao-Akala has vowed to fight the removal of his name from the governorship candidates’ list by the Independent National Electoral Commission. The commission removed the name of the governor as PDP governorship candidate for Oyo state in the April 2011 election on Tuesday, citing a subsisting court order. But in a statement made available to journalists in Ibadan on Wednesday, Morohunkola Thomas, director of publicity and communication of the Akala/Arapaja Campaign Organisation, noted that the governor would challenge both the interim order acted upon by INEC and the substantive suit against him.

The opposition within the party in the state had sought the rejection of the list of candidates presented by the ruling PDP for elective posts in the state for the 2011 election, arguing that the state executive committee that conducted the primaries that produced the candidate was not properly constituted, as the congress that produced the team was inconclusive. The aggrieved parties then sought and secured an interim order to restrain the INEC from accepting the list pending the determination of the suit by the Federal High Court in Ibadan. Acting on the interim order, the national headquarters of the INEC announced the removal of the names of Oyo state PDP candidates from the contestants of the April polls. The removal came just a few hours after the leaders of the party presented the governor with their flag at a colourful campaign flag-off ceremony in Ibadan to symbolize their backing of his candidacy for the election. Already, the governor was said

to have engaged the services of senior lawyers to represent him in court to push for the vacation of the order today.

“To think that some expired and unpopular politicians can use some extra political means to achieve what they could not achieve on the political field is nothing but wishful thinking,” Mr. Thomas said in his release.