Posted by By JAMES OJO, Abuja. on
Leader of the Ondo State caucus in the House of Representatives, Hon Alaba Ojomo, has alleged plans by the opposition parties to take over South West from the People Democratic Party (PDP). He, however, warned that the game plan would be defeated.
Leader of the Ondo State caucus in the House of Representatives, Hon Alaba Ojomo, has alleged plans by the opposition parties to take over South West from the People Democratic Party (PDP). He, however, warned that the game plan would be defeated.
Speaking in Abuja on Thursday, Ojomo, who is representing Ondo State in the Constitution Review Committee, therefore, called on the national leadership of the party to come to the rescue of the South-West from the ravaging tactics of the opposition. One of the plots of the opposition, he pointed out, was to capitalize on the biased judgment delivered by Justice Nabaruwa led election petition tribunal that nullified the election of Governor Olusegun Agagu to take over the reign of government in the state.
More morrisome, he added, was the fact that more than 80 percent of federal lawmakers representing the state have had their elections nullified by the election petition tribunal, leaving the flanks open for the determined opposition to take over the machineries of government.
'As a legislator, I felt that our party is being threatened by some political warlords. The revisionists are bent on truncating the efforts of the PDP to return the South-West into the mainstream of politics and governance in Nigeria.
'It is their assumption that by controlling Lagos and Ondo, the most economically viable states in the region, they would be able to foray into Osun, Ekiti, Oyo and Ogun States, in order to destabilize them and take over the machineries of government,' he alleged.
Ojomo, who was the immediate past chairman of the House Committee on Health, stated that the opposition has not relented on its mission of taking over the region by hook or crooks, since it was returned into the mainstream of national politics some years ago, adding that it was part of the game plan of the opposition, who claim to be Yoruba leaders, to take over Ondo State, having consolidated their hold on Lagos State.
He described the tribunal ruling that nullified the election of Dr. Agagu as ill-conceived and biased, adding that the chairman of the tribunal has never hidden his disdain for the ruling governor from the beginning. He maintained that the ruling weakened the ruling party by canceling all votes garnered by Agagu's PDP from its stronghold thereby disenfranchising more than 50 percent of the eligible voters of the state.
He added that the ruling was hurriedly delivered just to hide the real fact and favour the opponents.
'The judgment was prejudiced and ill-motivated; it respects the rule of anarchy rather than the rule of law and gratefully, people have started reacting to the ruling. The tribunal erred by passing judgment on materials not pleaded, evidences not corroborated and showed throughout the sittings traces of bias and prejudice.
'But we have since appealed the judgment at the Appeal Court and we are sure the ruling would be upturned; the game-plan of the opposition was to revise all the gains recorded by the PDP led government in Ondo state and in the west generally masquerading as Yoruba leaders under Afenifere,' he noted.