By Ajani Okanlawon
Former Governor of Oyo State, Adebayo Alao-Akala, has accused the All Progressives Congress (APC) of starting the rumour that he was dead.
The Labour Party (LP) candidate for the April 11 governorship election spoke through his Director of Public Affairs, Oludare Ogunlana.
The ex-governor was reacting to an online publication which carried the “fabricated lies” which he described as one of the tactics of the APC administration to hold on to power in Oyo beyond this year.
It had been reported that Alao-Akala collapsed in the early hours of Wednesday and thus delayed the National Executive Council meeting of LP for some hours.
Saying that the website which carried the story was linked to the campaign structure of incumbent Governor Abiola Ajimobi of the APC who is seeking re-election, Ogunlana said that “a death wish for Chief Alao-Akala at this point is a true character of a desperado”.
He denied insinuation that his boss was battling an “undisclosed ailment”, saying “we deliberately kept mute and refused to make comment on the foreign medical trips which the governor (Ajimobi) has embarked upon since the last couple of weeks”.
His words: “Lies and deceits are the stock in trade of the APC. More than before, the people know that the APC led administration in this state has failed. It is when all efforts to downplay the soaring popularity of Chief Alao-Akala failed that the drowning APC administration resorted to cheap blackmail.
“People of Oyo State know who is battling with prostate cancer to the extent that the tax-payers’ money was invested on private cancer testing centre under the guise of medical NGO. Whereas, the state own government hospitals were neglected and ill equipped.”
Alao-Akala challenged the publisher of the story to come out openly if the news was true, adding that “why didn’t other journalists who were at the venue get the news? The Nigerian Guild of Editors should look into the issue of unregistered news media who spread lies in order to please certain politicians for pecuniary interest.”
