Yusuf Oketola
ADELEKE family in the State of Osun has denied the insinuation that the head of the family, Dr. Deji Adeleke, has accepted a sum of $75.5m from the presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, to help him talk to his younger brother, Sen. Ademola Adeleke, to step down for Governor Adegboyega Oyetola in the forthcoming governorship election in the state.
In a statement issued on Tuesday by a member of the family, Mallam Rasheed Olawale, the family said the insinuation was coming from some demented minds who are hellbent to tarnish the good name of the family.
The family described the report as untrue, saying there is no time Deji Adeleke had meeting with Tinubu to trade away his brother’s ambition.
The statement reads: “Our attention has been drawn to a libelous defamatory fake news from a counterfeited platform, positing that Dr Deji Adeleke has traded away his brother’s ambition in a negotiation with Senator Bola Tinubu.
“The story which contained all manners of evil concoctions were not only fictitious lies but they are figment of a demented mind faced with road block in political progress. It is unbelievable that any reasonable writer will concoct such deceitful piece without any iota of truth.
“The said platform has demonstrated that fake news should not only be sanctioned and criminalised but all purveyors of fake news should be judicially punished.
“We want to state quite strongly that Dr Deji Adeleke at no time had any meeting with Senator Tinubu. He was never in any financial compensatory deals with the presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC).
“He remains a strong pillar of his brother and other pro-people politicians in the popular drive to enthrone good governance in Osun state. We affirm that the business mogul has not discussed or trade away his brother’s ambition as projected especially as he is not a card-carrying member of any political party.
“We subsequently urge the general public to disregard the malicious publication and push ahead with the overwhelming drive to change the narration of Osun state for better.
“Those behind the publication are desperate politicians who are threatened by the imminent victory of Senator Ademola Adeleke in the July 16th governorship elections.”
