Why Ladi Adebutu’s petition against Governor Dapo Abiodun/APC should be dismissed outright -By Oluwaseun Aderinoye
The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) candidate in the March 18, 2023 governorship election in Ogun State is becoming more and more desperate in his bid to reverse the outcome of the election won by Governor Dapo Abiodun. He has failed to realize that he is on a fruitless journey and that at this juncture, he needs to return home. After all, when the river overflows its banks and hinders your further movement, home beckons.
It is not surprising that in his ill-fated journey into political infamy and eclipse, Adebutu has been making one misstep and Freudian slip after another, continually casting him and his co-travelers as either perpetually inebriated or confused. One such blunder was the petition he recently addressed to the Inspector-General of Police alleging vote buying against Governor Dapo Abiodun and his Party, All Progressives Congress, (APC ) and requesting police investigation.
There are several reasons why the petition should be dumped in the trash can:
• The petition is frivolous. It is a product of the superficial, carefree mind of Adebutu and his acolytes who have no other purpose than to take over the governorship of Ogun State through the backdoor. How does he want anyone, including the police, to take him seriously when he waited until a case of vote buying was leveled against him, investigated by the police, and charges of conspiracy, bribery, and money laundering preferred against him and his accomplices before coming out to say “hey, you Dapo and APC too are guilty of vote buying, see the cards you also used”. He could only have acted from a state of hallucination or drunken stupor. It is a display of frivolity. It is lacking honest and altruistic purpose and value, and a serious-minded and very busy police institution should not be bothered by it
• The petition lacks evidence. Unlike the petition against him and his accomplices by the APC, Adebutu did not provide the place, time, and perpetrators of the cases of vote buying leveled against Governor Dapo and APC. Also, while his inducement verve cards bore his late mother’s name, the so-called ” Topup Gift Cards” Ladi claims were printed by Dapo and APC to induce voters and were neither linked to APC nor Abiodun. He also did not provide evidence of the N5 billion he claims Governor Abiodun used in printing the cards, whereas in the case of vote buying against him, the bank, Zenith Bank Plc, and the account number he used was provided. Also, his verve cards were distributed on the day of the election with dedicated POS operators on standby to dispense N10,000 each to induced voters.
Equally worthy of note is that security agents arrested suspects from whom Adebutu’s verve cards were recovered. None of the cards now being paraded by Adebutu as the ones purportedly used by Governor Abiodun and APC to buy voters were recovered by the police or any of the security agencies either before, during, or after the election, and not even one APC member was arrested in this connection. The allegations are therefore like straws at which Adebutu as a drowning man is clutching, realising the utter failure of his desperate ambition to become the governor of Ogun State through outright criminality.
• The Police cannot shave Adebutu’s head in his absence. It is standard police practice to obtain a confirmatory statement on the authorship of a written complaint from a complainant or petitioner directly, not through a proxy, before commencing investigation. Adebutu must come out to adopt his petition in a written statement before the police can look into it. However, poor Adebutu is at large, desperate to evade prosecution for vote-buying, bribery and criminal conspiracy charges that federal prosecutors have preferred against him. He claims he is sick and is out there in an undisclosed country outside Nigeria receiving treatment. While the purported sickness would be interminable for as long as the criminal charges hang around his neck like an albatross and over his head like the Sword of Damocles, he has the guts to occasionally peep out of his foxhole to throw darts. His frivolous petition will gather dust until he returns home.
• The petition is vexatious. Judging by his desperation to occupy the seat of Governor of Ogun State tate, it is inconceivable that Adebutu had such damning evidence of vote buying against Governor Dapo Abiodun and APC but waited to be reminded to use it against them. He only sprang into action following a proven case of vote buying against. He can’t possibly be serious ! It is either that he cooked up the evidence or had had it with him all this while but did not attach confidence of weight and value to it, hence he did not use it as early as reasonably expected of him. The only reasonable inference that can be drawn from his duplicitous action is that he brought up a petition without substance simply to annoy the governor and his party, hoping to frustrate the criminal charges against him or gain the undeserved sympathy of the Election Tribunal where he has gone to contest the victory of Governor Abiodun in the March 18 governorship election. He is out to waste the time of both the police and the court and therefore should not be granted that luxury.
• The more vexatious aspect of his devious gameplan is that in the petition he filed against Governor Dapo Abiodun and APC, at the Ogun Election Tribunal over the outcome of the March 18 polls, he never pleaded vote buying. However, his team of lawyers on Tuesday, June 18th at the Tribunal attempted with all desperation to allow the spurious allegation to be pleaded. A Tribunal of such eminent and highly respected jurists will not grant such frivolous application as in all civil matters like election cases, parties are bound by their initial pleadings accompanied by grounds and particulars of pleadings, and an affidavit to tighten the lock on exhaustiveness and confidence on the pleadings. Like all traditional and conservative courts, the Tribunal is not a father Christmas, and cannot therefore grant him a belated and demented pleading. It is an off-side plea which the court/Tribunal will not grant.
• Of course, the most annoying aspect of Adebutu’s petition is that he and his lawyer are aware that under section 308 of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, Abiodun as the sitting governor of Ogun state enjoys immunity against civil and criminal proceedings during his period of office. He cannot be arrested or imprisoned, nor can he be compelled by any court process or order to appear before the police in connection with the frivolous petition. So, there is no other thing to gain from his frivolous petition to the police other than malice. He aims to whip up public sentiments in his favor over the charges against him and his accomplices. He is therefore advised as the honorable gentleman he claims to be to come out to answer the charges of vote buying against him and assist the police to facilitate an investigation into a similar allegation he has made against Governor Abiodun and APC.
Continually holing himself up in God-knows-where will further worsen his state of health. He needs his liberty urgently to expedite the healing process. Ladi, come out! Please, come out! Ma beru! Fear thee not!
Aderinoye, a security expert sent this piece from seunaderinoye@gmail.com
