S’west PDP, APC bicker over disbandment of Osun election tribunal

• Opposition woos disgruntled APC members in Lagos

LEADERS of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the southwest have flayed the disbandment of Osun State Election Petition Panel by the President of the Court of Appeal.

National Vice Chairman of the PDP in the zone, Dr. Eddy Olafeso, Olafeso disclosed this in a communiqué after a stakeholder’s forum in Akure yesterday.

He described the disbandment and reconstitution of the panel as bizarre.

The PDP also condemned the spontaneous arrest and detention of the immediate past governor of Ekiti State, Ayo Fayose, accusing the Federal Government of political vendetta against him.

Meanwhile, the Lagos State chapter of the PDP has urged disgruntled members of the All Progressives Congress (APC) to defect to the party to actualise their ambition.

PDP Publicity Secretary, Mr. Taofik Gani, who made the call in a statement yesterday, charged members of the APC to join the ‘free Lagos’ cam- paign to take the state from an individual to the people. Also, PDP senatorial candidate for Lagos West, Mr. Gbadebo Rhodes-vivour implored Lagos indigenes of to challenge Tinubu’s oneman show.

In a related development, the PDP accused the national leadership of the All Progressives Congress (APC) of plotting to use the husband of the President of the Court of Appeal, Justice Zainab Adamu Bulkachuwa, to influence the tribunals in Ekiti and Osun state. According to a statement by the Deputy National Publicity Secretary of the party, Prince Diran Odeyemi, in Osogbo, the recent ‘gift’ of the APC Bauchi North Senatorial ticket to Adamu Bulkachuwa, the husband of Justice Bulkachuwa, after he lost the primaries to Usman Abubakar Tuggar, was a pointer to that direction.

However, the APC in a statement by its Director of Publicity, Research and Strategy, Kunle Oyatomi, said the fact that the Appeal Court President is not sitting on the matter has destroyed PDP’S argument.