The governorship candidate of the African Democratic Congress in Saturday\u2019s Ekiti State governorship election, Wole Oluyede, on Wednesday expressed regret for joining politics, following the turn of events in the poll.<\/p>\n
Oluyede, an Australia-based medical doctor, who said he had lost hope in the electoral process in Ekiti State, said, \u201cI am not going to run again because I think any contest now is for the highest bidder and I won\u2019t waste my time and energy\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\n The ADC candidate, who came fourth in the election, said that he deliberately refused to buy votes in Saturday\u2019s election, adding, \u201cI have lost hope in the entire process in the state, it is a tragedy. I didn\u2019t buy votes of Ekiti people deliberately.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cI can\u2019t use my hard-earned resources to run around talking to people on why I should be elected and I will still need to buy people, security agencies and the Independent National Electoral Commission. It appears politics here does not mean the best will emerge,\u201d he said.<\/span><\/p>\n Oluyede said he would not challenge in court the outcome of the election which he said was highly monetised, saying such would amount to time wasting as he alleged that the entire election process including the electoral umpire and security agencies were hijacked by vote-buyers thus making it easy to induce voters without any hindrance.<\/span><\/p>\n He said, \u201cEkiti people have chosen the leader they want by collecting money to vote and they should not complain of lacking basic and social amenities in the future. The problem Ekiti has now is that the people are poor and that was why they could buy their conscience. That was what All Progressives Congress used in gaining the heart of many people.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cMore worrisome is the fact that the people do not want a solution to the problem of poverty. That was why even when we came with an agenda to address the poverty confronting them, they still expected us to buy their votes before we could help them. The winner is not the best, but he is the one the people deserved.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cIt was consensual. Nobody can say that the inducement was forced on them. Personally, I have learned a new lesson about Ekiti. If I had known, I would not have become a politician, much more contest for election.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Oluyede, who denied insinuations that APC presidential candidate, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, bankrolled his campaign, said, \u201cI have not seen Tinubu since 2018. I ran my political activities with my hard earned fund. I was part of the South West Agenda for Tinubu 2023 team that supported his emergence as APC presidential candidate. I gave financial support to SWAGA\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\n However, APC governorship candidate and governor-elect, Biodun Oyebanji, had exonerated himself and APC from vote-buying, saying victory in the election was based on people\u2019s trust for the party following his manifesto and Governor Kayode Fayemi\u2019s impressive performance in office.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The governorship candidate of the African Democratic Congress in Saturday\u2019s Ekiti State governorship election, Wole Oluyede, on Wednesday expressed regret for joining politics, following the turn of events in the poll. Oluyede, an Australia-based medical doctor, who said he had lost hope in the electoral process in Ekiti State, said, \u201cI am not going to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9212,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[5304,22],"class_list":["post-9211","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","tag-ekiti-adc-gov-candidate","tag-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9211"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9211"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9211\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9214,"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9211\/revisions\/9214"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/9212"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9211"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9211"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9211"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}