APC paid Adeleke to contest PDP primary

               APC paid Adeleke to contest PDP primary — Bello

Bello

In this interview with FEMI MAKINDE, the former Director-General of Senator Isiaka Adeleke Campaign Organisation, Mr. Adejare Bello, who is now Senator Iyiola Omisore’s running mate alleges that Adeleke lied to him and the Peoples Democratic Party in Osun State during the PDP primary election

Are you not worried by allegations of violence being leveled against Senator Iyiola Omisore, who you now work with?

I feel very happy to be nominated by the Peoples Democratic Party to be the running mate of Senator Iyiola Omisore. I am delighted that Senator Omisore himself ratified the nomination. The allegation that Omisore is a violent person does not hold water. It is baseless and a calculated attempt by some wicked politicians to discredit and bring his political career down.

We have been together since 1999 when Nigeria returned to democracy; he was the deputy governor under the Alliance for Democracy and I was the minority leader at the House of Assembly. I was the one that went to the High Court to challenge the then government and when the injunction came, I pasted it at the entrance of the House of Assembly to forestall any move to impeach him. We have been together for a long time and he is a good friend.

I know very well that those who are tagging him to be a violent person are doing that to be in power perpetually, despite the fact that they know that they have not delivered. They are bound to be rejected by the people and that is why they are calling him names. I know they will soon come up with fabricated stories to discredit me now that I have been nominated as Omisore’s running mate.

I am not a running mate to a criminal; I am not a running mate to a violent person. I am a running mate to Omisore, who is passionate, loving, articulate and who understands Osun politics.

 You have always been in Adeleke’s camp; at what point did you part ways with him?

I parted ways with him because he lied to me and to all of us in in Ede. He went to a traditional ruler and told him that President Goodluck Jonathan called him and anointed him as the governorship candidate of the PDP. He sent the monarch to me, who begged me to follow him (Adeleke). If the king begged me to do something, that is the entire town begging me and I agreed to work for him. I joined his campaign organisation and he made me the director general of his campaign organisation the day I reported.

Unfortunately, he first told us that the presidency had directed that there shall be no primaries but by the virtue of my experience as a caretaker chairman of the PDP in the state, I suspected he was telling a lie. I knew that even if we needed to reach a consensus to pick a candidate, we would still need to go to the field to affirm. I became skeptical and became suspicious when he said we should go out and canvass for votes among the delegates.

Later, we got to know that that he got the money he was spending from the All Progressives Congress.

 How did you get to know this?

I have a number of points to raise on this but I don’t want to dwell on it now. They gave him money to come and cause crisis in the PDP. Their plan was for him to get the PDP ticket and, afterwards, sell the ticket to the APC. How will he sell it, I am sure you will ask. He would have been very passive and this would allow the APC candidate to have a field day. He got the money, spent some and diverted the remaining fund.

When we got to know about this, I parted ways with him. I decided not to go to his house any longer. That was where our problem started. He deceived us in Ede and in the PDP in Osun State but the truth later came out.

You are all living witnesses that the President denied anointing him; even former Ogun State Governor, Otunba Gbenga Daniel, who he said called him and delivered the president’s message to him, also denied his claim. You can now see that he is a blatant liar and he is someone I must stop to follow as my leader. I followed him for 24 years in his political career. I followed him even when he was the governor on the platform of the Social Democratic Party and I, as the state public relations officer of the National Republican Convention, supported him despite being in another party. I did this because we are from the same town. I never did anything to betray him but he never trusted me once.

When I became speaker in 2003, Adeleke wanted to block my way. When I won the 2007 election again and I was to continue as speaker and Prince Olagunsoye Oyinlola said I should continue, Adeleke told the state leader that they wanted somebody else and not me again. I will remain grateful to Oyinlola till I ‘ll die because he stood his ground.

 Are you now saying Adeleke did not support your political ambition at all?

To be honest, I contested elections in Ede-North Constituency four times and I won all. Adeleke himself contested five elections; he won two and lost three. In all the five elections he stood for, there was none where I did not support him with everything I had. He also supported me; in fact, he spent his money on my election in 1997 and in 1999.

I want say that Adeleke planned against me in 2007 when he did not want me to continue as the speaker. He admitted all of these when the party descended on the people he used. They confessed that Adeleke sent them when he found out that I was becoming too powerful for him to handle. That is his problem; he doesn’t want anybody in that town to rise politically except himself and members of his family. That I was in the House of Assembly for 12 years was the work of God. If it was left for Adeleke to decide, I wouldn’t be.

 Don’t you think that Adeleke’s exit from the PDP will affect the party in the election especially in Ede where you come from?

I want to say that on August 10, when the result of the governorship will be officially announced, Adeleke will find it difficult to enter into Ede. He will be shocked to the bone marrow by the time the result is out.

His exit from our party will be a blessing to us in Ede and in Osun PDP. People in the town have realised that this man has been taking us for a ride in Ede for the past 22 years.

He was in the Senate and he was the Chairman, Senate Committee on the Independent National Electoral Commission and nobody benefited anything from him. Let the people of Ede look at my own time at the state House of Assembly and look at what benefits they got.

If both of us are called out in Ede and people are asked to line up behind us, I will not need to look back to know that the queue behind me will be far longer than the one behind Adeleke.

 Adeleke alleged that Omisore and other persons beat him shortly before the PDP primary, did you witness how he was beaten?

I was not there with him that night but he called me around 2am and said he was beaten up and was at the police headquarters to make a report. I went there to see him. But I later got to know that the officials who would conduct the election asked contestants to come to a hotel but instead of going there with two or three security men, he went there with thugs. The security men who were there arrested the thugs and he wanted to make sure the thugs were released.

 Can you and Iyiola Omisore unseat the incumbent governor, Rauf Aregbesola?

I am very confident that the combination of Omisore and Adejare Bello will win the August 9 governorship election in the state. The people have rejected Aregbesola and his party because the people of the state have seen that they are full of deceit and nothing else.

I want to tell you that we have won this election. Omisore and Bello are Osun-based politicians; who understand the politics of the state; and who are well loved by the people, unlike Aregbesola and his deputy who are Lagos-based.

The people are suffering because of capital flight. They take the money to Lagos and even all their contractors are from Lagos. The people of the state are not enjoying anything from the government.