Adebutu Calls for Investigation of Leaked Police Interim Report

Oladipupo Adebutu, the Peoples Democratic Party’s candidate for governor in Ogun State’s general elections in 2023, has requested that police authorities should investigate how information from an incomplete investigation’s interim report was leaked to the media.

Adebutu queried how the police interim report got to the media when the police had not completed the investigation.

However, the governorship candidate confirmed the report that he had filed a lawsuit against Abubakar Malami, the Attorney General of the Federation, Usman Baba, the Inspector-General of Police, Yusuf Bichi, the Director of the State Security Services, and Abdulrasheed Bawa, the Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, over allegations of vote-buying made against him.

In his response to a reporter from Punch on Tuesday, Afolabi Orekoya, the media director of the Ladi Adebutu Campaign Organization, stated, “It is just a petition.”

Orekoya, however, in a statement denied the assertion that she was part of N2 billion vote-buying activities and called the allegations unfounded.

The assertion that the Ladi Adebutu Campaign Organization had engaged in vote-buying during the state’s governorship race was the subject of the statement, which was made in reaction to the revelation by some internet media.

The statement read, “The unsubstantiated claims that a certain “PDP Chieftain in trouble as police uncover shocking N2 billion vote-buying scheme” by some online news platforms led by Premium Times are nothing but further evidence that Ogun APC and Dapo Abiodun have decided to go for cheap blackmail after realising that our candidate and PDP’s petition before the Tribunal is unequivocally tight.

“This has not come as a surprise to the Ladi Adebutu Campaign Organisation because, after failing in their efforts to coax, intimidate, and harass the PDP Candidate, Hon (Dr) Oladipupo Adebutu, and his family to withdraw the petition despite pleas from their emissaries, delegations, and offer of monetary compensation; the APC and its candidate, at the March 18th governorship election, Mr Dapo Abiodun, have resorted to blackmail, media trial, depravity, and malfeasance in an attempt to buy public sentiment and confuse the Judiciary.

“Members of the public will recall that immediately after the election, Mr Tunde Oladunjoye, the Ogun APC Publicity Secretary, in an attempt to force Hon. Oladipupo Adebutu to drop the petition against his party (APC), claimed on a Channels TV show that one of the many humanitarian gestures of the Adebutu family was for other purposes and intent.

“For clarity’s sake, the fact of the burial of the Adebutu matriarch, Late Dame Caroline Adebutu, on February 11th, 2023, is in the public domain, and it will be unreasonable and unconscionable for anyone under the guise of paid reporting to attempt to twist the details.”

The statement added, “It should be noted by members of the public that this purported “interim report” of an investigation, which the APC also alluded to, which has not been concluded, is being preempted by them. It is, therefore, glaring that the effort of Mr Abiodun and his party to act as whistleblowers for the police is a deliberate and mischievous attempt to blackmail our principal.

“We hereby call on the police authorities to open an investigation into how “explicit” details of the interim report of an uncompleted investigation were leaked to the press, even though the petition leading to this investigation is laced with political undertones.”

Orekoya added that the APC and its candidate had previously tried to coerce, intimidate, and harass Adebutu and his family into withdrawing their petition, but all efforts were in vain.