Osun state governor-elect, Ademola Adeleke, says some associates of the Minister of Interior, Rauf Aregbesola, worked for him during the just concluded governorship election.
Adeleke made the clarification in an interview aired by Channels Television on Monday.
Adeleke of the Peoples Democratic Party was declared winner after he secured 403,371 votes to defeat incumbent, Governor Adegboyega Oyetola of the All Progressives Congress (APC), who polled 375,027 votes.
Weeks before the election, the cold was between Aregbesola and Oyetola reached a crescendo, causing many members of the party to dump the APC for PDP.
Speaking on rumours that Aregbesola supported him to emerge winner, Adeleke said, “I did not work with Aregbesola. I didn’t even talk to him, but all I know is his associates, for example, Kolapo Alimi, one of the lawyers that represented Oyetola at the tribunal,” he said.
“Then, anytime I saw him (Alimi) in court, because I’m a civilised person, I will go to them and greet them and sayhow are you doing? It was later he apologised and said he was thinking ‘why is senator Adeleke greeting me? We are trying to mess him up and he is still greeting me.
“But he later told me that while I was greeting him, I didn’t know that I was giving them poison. They knew that I won the election and they rigged me out and I was still greeting them. I believe that Aregbesola and Oyetola fell out.
“He (Alimi) came to me and said he has watched me and that he wants to join our party and we accepted. But Aregbesola directly? No. But we know a lot of top APC that joined.
“Assuming that I had been talking to Aregbesola one way or the other, then I would say that maybe he gave them go-ahead to support me.
“These people have grown; they have their own minds to decide if they want to join me or not. They believed that I was the one to beat and they came to me. I won’t know whether Aregbesola gave them go-ahead or not, because I have not been talking to Aregbesola.”
Quizzed on the falling out between Oyetola and Aregbesola, Adeleke said he thanked God for the development, while admitting that the conflict paved way for his victory.
“I said God is good. These (Aregbesola and Oyetola) are the people that colluded that time. They were together. Kolapo Alimi told me the truth that they robbed me. Even the president said it when he came over here that they won the election through remote control,” he said.
