The Chairman of Osun State Independent Electoral Commission (OSSIEC), Hashim Abioye, Esq., has dismissed the allegation of bias and partisanship thrown at him by the Osun Masterminds. At a press conference organised by the Osun Masterminds for their January, 2025 edition of their State of the State address, the Osun Masterminds during question and answer session erroneously pinned an illegality on Hashim Abioye, OSSIEC Chairman.
In his reaction, Abioye stated that an illegality is a criminality. What crime has been committed by being a member of a political party in the past and later resigning one’s membership. I learnt their Executive Director is a Professor, I don’t know whether it is in Law, but I know he is a Lawyer in the fold of the acclaimed “Osun Masterminds”. So sad if a lawyer does not know what an illegality connotes. I have since dropped the garb and garment of a politician. The Masterminds or whoever they are should let Osun people know where they were when about 2 billion naira Osun people’s funds were desperately and deliberately wasted on the YES/NO election conducted under the past administration in 2022. The “know it all Osun Masterminds” were sleeping and no where to be found when OSSIEC under the past administration brazenly defiled the law establishing OSSIEC itself, deliberately violated the Electoral Act and the Constitution, an obvious criminality. Who is at the genuine service of Osun people between the Masterminds who were never in existence as at the time the illegality under the past administration with regards to the Osun 2022 local government election was being fought out in court by Hashim Abioye who led the legal team then.
Our friends ” the Osun Masterminds” looked away when the immediate past Chairman of OSSIEC and members were all over joining campaign trains of the APC while at the same time serving on the Board of OSSIEC.
The Osun Masterminds found no cause to appreciate OSSIEC under the present leadership for the renovations, bringing innovations, facelifting the infrastructures of the Commisison, for the digital interventions, for upholding the best standards in the local government election process, the best in the history of local government elections in Osun State. They suppressed the fact of the administrative and managerial best practices we have brought to bear on the Commission. They feigned ignorance of our activities which reasonable individuals, bodies and organisations have applauded. Our media friendliness and our transparency from the start till now did not appeal to the “Masterminds”. Rather, they have joined in the sentiments and propaganda of some people singing bad about Hashim Abioye. The Masterminds should remove their veil and tell us who they actually are and what they are for perse. Nobody would crucify them for coming out bold to publicly associate with their political party. What moral stand and stance does Prof. Wasiu Oyedokun-Alli, especially, have, to badmouth Hashim Abioye when he himself had been an aspirant several times on the platform of the APC. The self-serving Masterminds are not serving the public but some “masters in their minds”.
For us at OSSIEC, we are matching on, and no sentiment or emotion will make us lose focus on the big assignment before us. Posterity is there to judge all of us.