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From Laide Raheem, Abeokuta
The Media Office of Senator Solomon Olamilekan Adeola, otherwise known as Yayi, has said that there was no court injunction halting the conduct of the primary election which produced the senator as the Ogun West senatorial candidate of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC).
In a statement by the Media Adviser to Senator Adeola, Kayode Odunaro, on Tuesday, in Abeokuta, the news of the purported interlocutory injunction published in the Punch Newspapers Online was nothing but a “fake news” to mislead the general public.
Odunaro noted that the court papers filed at the Federal High Court, Abeokuta, purporting that an injunction had been granted, were circulated at the primary exercise which took on May 28, 2022, in Ilaro, was just to thwart the election where Senator Adeola emerged victorious.
While urging members of the public to disregard the “fake news” of an injunction against the hard-won landslide victory of Senator Adeola in the Ogun West Senatorial APC primary, the statement further urged the party to sanction any erring members engaging in what amounts to gross anti-party activities.
The statement reads in part: “The attention of the Office of Senator Solomon Adeola, Chairman of the Senate Committee of Finance has been drawn to a story published in Punch Newspapers Online with the title “Aggrieved Ogun Politicians Challenge Lagos Senator’s Victory in Court” based on the circulation of court papers filed on May 27, 2022 seeking an interlocutory injunction to stop the APC Senatorial Primary for Ogun West Senatorial District which took place on Saturday, May 28, 2022. The court papers have been circulated since Saturday purporting that an injunction has been granted.
“Ordinarily, the victorious Senator Adeola in the concluded primary would have let the authors of the court papers live in their fool’s paradise but is now forced to react to the spreading of what amounts to fake news and blatant lies using credible medium of Punch Online and other blogs.
“The fact of the matter is that no court has granted any injunction stopping the concluded primary or in any way questioning the landslide victory of Senator Adeola last Saturday which had the participation of his opponent, Senator Tolu Odebiyi who scored zero vote to lose to Senator Adeola’s 294 votes as widely reported in the media.
“It is regrettable that Punch will allow its platform to put out a fake new purporting that an injunction was obtained when paragraph 3 of its story states: “The aggrieved politicians; Adebiyi Tajudeen, Olajumoke Ibrahim, and Muideen Akintade had on Friday, approached an Abeokuta division of the Federal High Court, obtaining an interlocutory injunction, restraining Adeola from parading himself as the candidate”.
“There is no iota of truth in the statement quoted above as the mentioned litigants only filed motion seeking an injunction restraining Senator Adeola from participation in a primary that was to took place some hours to the filing of the court papers. Predictably no judge was assigned to the case and as we speak we are not aware of the assignment of the case to any judge.
“We challenge Punch to mention the name of the judge that granted the injunction allegedly obtained by the litigants against the primary as filed in the court papers or to produce a copy of the injunction against the primary that has now transmuted to “restraining Adeola from parading himself as the candidate”! How the reporter jumped from court papers seeking injunction from participation in a political party primary to injunction restraining a candidate is something Punch should thoroughly investigate as we believe that to be fake news.
“Senator Adeola is not averse to anyone following the rule of law in their failed agitation to engage in politics of exclusion and will join issues with any litigants following due process. But the judicial process and the media must not be manipulated to serve base and vile ambition of a grossly unpopular aspirant for a democratic political office”.
