Jonathan replies Oshiomhole over vote-buying allegation

A former president, Goodluck Jonathan, has questioned the psychological state of the national chairman of the All Progressive Congress (APC), Adams Oshiomhole.

Mr Jonathan was reacting to an allegation by Mr Oshiomhole that vote-buying was started by the former president.

Vote-buying is the practice of paying voters to compel them to vote for particular candidates during an election. This has become a hot-button issue ahead of the 2019 general elections.

PREMIUM TIMES reported cases of vote buying in the Ekiti election. The two major parties in the election, APC and PDP, were culpable in it with videos showing how money was given the electorate to influence their votes.
Already, a civic group. SERAP has dragged the electoral commission, INEC to court over the commission’s failure to do something about the allegations.
In a bid to absolve his party from the allegations, Mr Oshomole in an interview on Channels Television on Monday blamed Jonathan, for introducing vote-buying into Nigerian politics during the 2015 general elections “where he churned out naira and dollars”.
“…In Edo State where I participated, I was still governor at the time, they churned out not just naira, they churned out dollars. President Jonathan started this massive vote-buying in Nigeria and the media must playback and do proper interview and investigation to discover the origin of vote-buying,” the party leader said in the interview reported by several other media.

But in a statement Wednesday by his media aide, Ikechukwu Eze, the former president described the former Edo State Governor’s remark as “misleading falsehood”.

He rather accused him (Oshomole) of introducing the vote buying trend during his stint as Edo governor in 2016.

He described the APC chairman as someone suffering from multiple personality syndrome and has a Jekyll and Hyde Schizophrenia citing Oshiomhole’s recent ‘flip-flops’ which he said may not be unconnected ”with the pressure he is going through in his new office”.

“It appears that Mr Oshiomhole’s psychological strain may have reached boiling point.

“His recent flip-flops where he praised Governor Samuel Ortom and Senator Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso one day only to denounce them the very next day, is enough evidence of his fragile psychological state. Not only is he content on squabbling with members of the opposition, we note the self-destructive tendencies of Oshiomhole who is locked in a feud with members of his own party including the minister of labour, Chris Ngige, and a host of APC Governors.”