Ondo Labour Party Candidate, Ayodele Olorunfemi Accuses Ebiseni Of Signature Forgery, Blames Obi, NLC For Election Loss.

Comrade Ayodele Olorunfemi, the reinstated Labour Party governorship candidate in the just concluded Ondo State election, has revealed that he will soon petition the Inspector General of Police to investigate how his signature was allegedly forged by Olusola Ebiseni and the Nigeria Labour Congress.

Ebiseni was the LP candidate for the November 16 poll until a last-minute ruling by the Court of Appeal in Abuja restored Olorunfemi as the party’s candidate for the election.

Speaking in an interview with The PUNCH, Olorunfemi, who lost in the election won by incumbent Governor Lucky Aiyedatiwa of the ruling All Progressives Congress, however, blamed his poor outing on former presidential candidate of the Labour Party, Peter Obi and the NLC.

“Their insistence on having Ebiseni on the ballot ruined everything for me,” he bemoaned.

“They just capitalised on the crisis between the Labour Party and the Nigeria Labour Congress to create problems. Can you imagine that Ebiseni wrote a letter to the court in my name without my knowledge, saying I have withdrawn from the race? They cannot exclude me from such a position,” he said, insisting that he will get to the root of that letter.

He said, “I have Peter Obi and the NLC to thank for that. They have scuttled my aspirations and chances to win this Ondo election. These people spoilt things for us with that PDP reject they wanted to force on the party.”

He, however, applauded the appellate court judgement which restored his candidacy for the governorship race.

“Thank God we got an appeal judgment and my name is back in the INEC portal. The good thing here is that the truth has prevailed,” he said.

He insisted that withdrawal must be voluntary. “You cannot force someone to withdraw. What they have done was an attempt to force me behind my back,” he claimed.

“Again, it wasn’t the party that submitted it. It was the handiwork of the former President of the NLC and head of the National Transition Committee, Abduwaheed Omar. What they did is criminal.

“In fact, I am planning to petition the Inspector General of Police to probe how they wrote that letter, put my signature and presented it before the court. We will deal with that later. For now, we are still doing our underground work and doing our best for this election,” he stated.

Ebiseni claimed that he paid Olorunfemi N20 million and an additional N5 million for the ticket and other cost but after paying the money, the latter allegedly held on to the ticket.

Olorunfemi hasn’t denied the claim but insisted that withdrawal must be voluntary.

Meanwhile, acting Chairman of the NLC Political Commission, Prof Theophilus Ndubuaku, labelled Olorunfemi as a ‘very funny character’ and accused him of working for the APC.

He said, “He is one human being you should never take seriously. As a result of this crisis between us and Abure, Olorunfemi became the deputy to Abure and he was given the ticket. Before this election, he was a placeholder. So what did he do? He now started shopping for who would buy the ticket from him.

“In the process, they asked Ebiseni to pay N20m to get the ticket. He paid and even added another N5m which they claimed was for expenses. When they refused to give him the ticket, Ebiseni went to court. In retaliation, the Abure’s camp started working to ensure INEC didn’t upload his name because of the Kangaroo judgment they went to secure.

“The only challenge we have was that before the judgment, INEC had already given the code for uploading the names of agents to Olorunfemi. We know he would have uploaded the names of suspected APC agents there. We know he is obviously working indirectly for the APC.”