Adelabu Faults Claims of Stepping down for APC Candidate

Kemi Olaitan in Ibadan

With the governorship election about two months away, the governorship candidate of Accord Party in Oyo State, Chief Adebayo Adelabu yesterday said he would not step down for his counterpart in the All Progressives Congress (APC), Senator Teslim Folarin.

 Adelabu, a former Deputy Governor, Operations of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), said he was in the 2023 governorship contest to win, insisting that he was the candidate to beat in the state.

 He made the clarification in a statement the Director-General of his Campaign Council, Adegboyega Adegoke issued yesterday.

 There had been speculation in Folarin’s camp that Adelabu would step in. Speculations sprang up amid fear that Folarin might not be able to defeat the governorship candidate of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and Oyo State Governor, Mr. Seyi Makinde without Adelabu’s support.

 In his statement yesterday, however, Adelabu maintained that he would not step down for Folarin or any other gubernatorial candidate through a coalition.

The statement alleged that the same fraudulent tactics were used during the APC primaries, which made the founding leaders, and members of the APC in the state leave the party.

It further explained that the people of the state “are already aware of the antics of some politicians which cannot take them anywhere in the 2023 general elections. There was no time when Adelabu held any meeting with Folarin on a coalition.

 “It has come to our notice that the APC gubernatorial candidate in Oyo state, Senator Teslim Folarin, has started his antics again, peddling lies and deceptions that the candidate of our party, Chief Adebayo Adelabu, will be leading a coalition in his favour.

“We want to bring it to the notice of the good people of Oyo State that there was no time Chief Adebayo Adelabu held any meetings with Senator Folarin on Coalition. This was another lie from a political schizophrenic, whose political career was built on falsehood and manipulations.

“Chief Adebayo Adelabu is contesting to win the governorship election in Oyo state under Accord. Chief Adelabu is a known technocrat, corporate guru and a business turnaround expert who has excelled in both private and the public sectors.

“All his businesses are domiciled in Oyo state, unlike the APC candidate whose means of livelihood was unknown before joining politics, and even now when he is serving at the Red Chamber for the third term, he cannot point to any business or investment where he has employed minimum of five people in Oyo State.

“Adelabu business addresses are known to the good people of Oyo state while the APC governorship candidate has no second address. We are using this medium to tell everyone that Senator Folarin is at it again but this time around, he will fail woefully.”