The Ondo State government has called for investigation and interrogation of the former Secretary to the State Government, Hon. Ifedayo Abegunde who resigned from the Akeredolu’s led cabinet on Monday, for participating in electoral fraud.
This was contained in a statement issued and signed by the Chief Press Secretary to the Governor, Mr Segun Ajiboye, who described Abegunde’s claims as “pernicious lies and imaginary thoughts lines considered perennial and seemingly becoming boring”.
According to Ajiboye, Abegunde’s outbursts are weighty confessions that must be investigated by security agencies.
He stated in the statement that “a quick run of the allegations shows a semblance of sustained recycling of falsehood as well as blackmail contents targeted at Mr Governor and his immediate family.
“It is, however, imperative to draw the attention of the Nation’s Security Agencies to a particular outburst wherein the former SSG confessed to having participated in electoral fraud in 2016”
Ajiboye who said Akeredolu, as an avid believer in democracy, rule of law and legality, will not be a beneficiary of the fraud Abegunde and his unnamed cohorts allegedly perpetrated during the 2016 governorship election.
He said “Abegunde’s outbursts are weighty confessions that must be investigated by security agencies.
“Anything to the contrary will not only encourage future acts as contained in the confessions. Such brazen anti-democratic acts are unambiguous, grave dangers to our fledgeling Electoral System.
Abegunde who denied rigging the 2016 election for Akeredolu but said he was quoted out of context.
According to him, he never said that the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) won the last governorship election and never participated in electoral fraud.
While explaining, he said ” my attention has been drawn to some misrepresentation and the misinformation on the social media and I wish to reiterate that at no time did I say that PDP won the 2016 governorship election, this is far from the truth
“The APC won the election with a wide margin and the PDP saw it useless to contest the result at the court of law.
“I only stressed that it was a steady and concerted effort of loyal party members that won that election for Akeredolu and never said we rigged or perpetrate electoral fraud in the 2016 governorship election”
He explained that he decided to part ways with Akeredolu after the governor derailed from the giving priority to the welfare of the people.
He said, “people are hungry and angry and I cannot continue to serve in a government when people are not taken care of”.
He, however, said he remained a member of the party and his departure from the government does not imply a departure from the party.