The Campaign Council of the All Progressives Congress (APC), in Osun and the camp of Governor Ademola Adeleke, on Friday disagreed over a viral video allegedly showing some supporters of the latter swearing to an oath before being induced financially ahead of next Saturday gubernatorial poll in the state.

While the APC Governorship Campaign Council in a statement by its head, media and publicity committee, Remi Omowaiye, said the video indicated the desperation of the governor perpetrate vote buying for his re-election ambition, Adeleke’s media aide, Hezekiah Bamiji Oladele distanced his principal from the video.

The video sighted by The Guardian allegedly showed a man donning Accord party faze cap making some individuals pledging allegiance to vote for the governor before they will be given an unspecified amount of money.

Reacting to the incident, Omowaiye accused Adeleke of vote buying, noting that the video “represents a dangerous descent into political desperation and an affront to the democratic values that guarantee every citizen the freedom to vote according to their conscience without coercion, intimidation or manipulation.”

“The emergence of these videos has further confirmed what is already obvious to every discerning observer—that Governor Ademola Adeleke has seen the unmistakable handwriting of defeat on the wall. Having failed to convince the people with his record in office, he has now resorted to frightening vulnerable citizens into pledging supernatural allegiance in a desperate bid to retain power.

“It is indeed tragic that after almost four years in office, a government that has impoverished and pauperized thousands of Osun residents has reduced the same people to the point where they are willing to invoke severe curses upon themselves if they fail to support the Accord Party and Governor Adeleke at the polls. Nothing could better illustrate the level of economic hardship and hopelessness inflicted on the people by this administration, he stated.

While responding, Oladele, a Senior Special Assistant to Adeleke on media, distanced his principal from the video, contending that the governor is upbeat about his electoral victory in the August 15 gubernatorial poll.

He described the viral video as a failed attempt to tarnish the image of the state governor and explore cheap blackmail, which he said would not make the electorate vote for the APC.

According to Oladele, “Adeleke would not send anybody to go and be taking oath for whatever amount of money they want to get. Be that as it may, any viral video to that effect did not emanate from our people and certainly and definitely not from Mr Governor.

“Mr Governor is continuing with governance with so many people working with him. He is not a desperate person. He’s not the type that bothers about tomorrow because it is his nature to believe in God. The same God has kept him this far, and it is not now that the governor will be sending anybody to go and take an oath on his behalf for whatever reason.

“People in different layers of politics have their own selected or special way of doing things in their own local arrangements. Mr Governor has nothing to do with oath-taking. He’s very busy with campaign schedules to be asking anybody making people to take oath on his behalf, “he posited.