Ekiti: Kayode Ojo's Suit, The True Account.

Ekiti: Kayode Ojo's Suit, The True Account.

...Describing the Sodeinde story as misleading.

The Kayode Ojo Campaign Organisation (KOCO) has reacted to a story in the social media credited to one heritage news blog and written by one Gbenga Sodeinde, describing it as total false and representation of what transpired in the court room. 

The organisation, in a statement titled: EKITI: KAYODE OJO'S SUIT, THE TRUE ACCOUNT and signed by its Media aide, Alhaji Deji Aiyelabowo was released to newsmen on Monday in Ado-Ekiti. 

Describing the Sodeinde story as misleading, the group noted that it has its representative, Gbenga Ogedengbe in the court room who gave the true account of what transpired. 

Ogedengbe account has released according to the statement reads: "I was personally present in the courtroom at the Federal High Court, Ado Ekiti, on Friday, the 22nd day of July 2022, where the case of Engr Kayode Ojo challenging the APC party candidature of Mr Biodun Oyebanji was being heard. 

"I was emotionally disturbed when I discovered that a false report of the proceeding that I saw online was credited to an online media practitioner, Mr Gbenga Sodeinde. 

"Sodeinde, certainly was not anywhere around the court, but most  likely, he had relied on the information gathered from some people, who do not know the difference between 'plaintiff' and 'defendant'. 

"But had the good privilege of financial packaging through their longtime romance with people in power."

Sodeinde had reported that Kayode Ojo, who was one of the aspirants that contested the party primaries said he won the  last APC governorship primary in Ekiti State based on the result which he saw on the social media. 

"That story was not only a falsehood, but an hypocrisy of the highest order. When has seen things on social media become a social stigma or object of derision? 

"In the contemporary world, there is no discussion under the sun that can go without the mention of social media. So, if social media was ever mentioned inside the court room, how has that translated to the illusionary statement of the writer?

"News related to JAMB and WAEC results are read on social media. News of politics and government activities are daily posted on social media.

"Sensibly, what should have been the issue  is not that something was posted on social media or not, but the authenticity/reliability of the source that posted which was most expected of the counsel to the defendants to ask for, had it been they prepared for defence.

"While waiting for the conventional electoral authority, in the Nigeria of today, election results from each polling unit are often uploaded by party agents for the public to cross check in the event of fraud by the supposed neutral electoral umpire. 

"So, would Kayode Ojo not have relied on the report of his party agents during the controversial primary election, either it was posted to him on the social medial or not? Social media has become a social archive depending on how it is used.

"Nevertheless, no one can rule out here, that the social media story might be to distract the general public from focussing on how the first, the second and the third defendants (APC, Oyebanji and INEC) danced naked during the court proceeding."

The organisation therefore faulted The report by Sidenide, asking that, "the falsehood presentation of the report did not mention how their counsels were said to have been out of time in all their responses to the petitions filed by Kayode Ojo.

"How Kayode Ojo's lead counsel, Mr Alex Izinyon (SAN) has endlessly been citing orders of the  court, electoral act 2022, and the constitution of Federal Republic of Nigeria, which they said was supreme to all other rules, in reinforcing his argument regarding why the court should declare Kayode Ojo as the winner of that controversial APC primary.

"Sodeinde did not remember to say how the Oyebanji's lawyers had monotonously been citing, over and over, ordinary guideline of a political party in a case which centres on governorship position

"I for one, that case was my first time of witnessing how a defendant would go to court without a single witness in a manner which suggested an helpless concession of defeat.

  

"While Kayode Ojo himself, and his 6 witnesses were fully on ground in the court, Biodun Oyebanji and and his own witnesses were nowhere to found.

"Rather, they were asking the court for an extended date to argue for a motion for an extended date, to start preparing for their defence, not even to bring their own witnesses, which hitherto according to the current electoral act, they supposed to have filed on or before 22nd of April, 2022.

"As we read here, in a case that has been initiated since February 9, this year, no single witness has come out to testify and contest the claim of Kayode Ojo that the said primary election was manipulated in favour of Mr Biodun Oyebanji, who is now the governor elect. 

"No witness has shown up to counter Kayode's claim that the party's returning officer in all the 16 local government areas were either past or present appointees of Mr Governor, the alleged godfather of Oyebanji. 

"No withess in the court to debunk Ojo's claim that the supporters and the members of the campaign council of  Biodun Oyebanji also served as local government returning officers who collated the result, on the strength of which Oyebanji was declared the winner." 

However, the organisation representative said that no witness was present in the court room to challenge the principal's (Kayode Ojo) claim that some of his supporters were harrassed and hounded out of some voting centres. The organisation advised that Sodeinde should have been more professional in his story, rather than offering himself to write falsehood which definitely can not help the course of his paymaster.