By Lateef Dada

BARELY three weeks to the March 28 presidential election political activities in Osun State have reached a feverish peak with the leading political parties locked in high-wire manoeuvre to outwit one another.
Although, election period in Nigeria has always been a time for attack, the current situation is giving observers a cause for concern.

Apart from mudslinging, defamation of character and exchange of brick-bats, the  political parties have introduced physical violence, which has heightened tension and fear in the polity.

The postponement of the presidential election from February 14 to March 28 has perhaps given the parties opportunity to intensify their campaigns and attack in which Osun state is not left out.

Being the only state in South-West that that fell to the defunct Action Congress of Nigeria, ACN, in the 2011 presidential election, the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, is not leaving anything to chance. It wants to ensure that the state is delivered to its Presidential Candidate, President Goodluck Jonathan this time.

Poster war
Apart from the abusive words being exchanged by the two major political parties, the PDP and APC are erecting big bill boards and pasting posters in all nooks and crannies of the state.

Specifically, Osogbo, the Osun State capital has been flooded with posters and billboards of APC and PDP candidates.

At the Orita-Olaiya junction, both parties erected billboards, placed side by side with various inscriptions which some political gladiators said are libellous.

While the PDP billboard reads: “Vote for Democrat, not Dictator”, that of APC reads: “Vote Good Governance, not Good luck.”

Allegation and counter-allegations
Also, the two political parties have not rested on their oars in trading words, accusations and allegations.
Recently, the APC alleged that a candidate of PDP in Osun East Senatorial District, Chief Francis Fadahunsi, has a detention camp in his house where he detains and tortures APC members.

In a swift reaction to the allegation, Fadahunsi invited journalists and conducted them round his Ilase-Ijesa country home and debunked the allegation.

He counter-alleged that APC leaders are the ones training thugs in the name of ‘state boys.’
While featuring at an interactive programme organized by the Osun State council of the Nigeria Union of Journalists, NUJ, recently, the senator representing Osun East on the platform of APC, Babajide Omoworare, was asked to name those  detained by Fadahunsi, but he could not name anyone as he said he did not remember their names. He insisted that Fadahunsi has a detention camp in his house, saying “he has detained and tortured three members of our party.”

Attacks on Jonathan, Buhari
The leading presidential candidates are not left out of the attacks. While the APC described President Jonathan as a person that lacks competence and capacity to lead the country, the PDP has continued to question the capability of Major-General Muhammadu Buhari (retd) to lead Nigeria based on his age and health condition.

Governor Rauf Aregbesola has kept saying that his party, APC, would win the March 28 election for Buhari, while PDP has insisted that Aregbesola has failed the people of Osun State and would find it difficult to repeat the 2011 victory in 2015.

Indeed, one question that is lingering on the lips of Osun people is whether or not the APC will have a repeat of what happened in 2011 considering the issue of salary and the way some candidates of the party emerged which generated reactions from party members. Another question is whether or not the PDP can win the state considering the recent loss of its governorship candidate, Senator Iyiola Omisore at the election petition tribunal. These questions will be answered in 22 days time.