Osun RMS Poll: Hatchet Job by Client for Ally

Posted by African Examiner Latest Headlines, News, osun election 2014 Friday, August 1st, 2014

We read without surprise the TNS-RMS poll in which the embattled Governor of Osun state ,Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola was awarded a whopping 73 percent rating in the August 9 poll. The poll is a careless hatchet job by a client for its benefactor and therefore lacking any basis in political reality in which over 90 percent of Osun indegenes have rejected the incumbent.

Osun State Governor Rauf Aregbesola

The public should note that USAID,an international organisation operating all over the world with unrivalled technical competence and impartial perspective on Osun political landscape, had put Senator Omisore ahead with 58 percent to Aregbesola’s 30 percent.

We are not suprised with the poll because the close relationship between Governor Rauf Aregbesola and the chairman of TNS-RMS,Alhaji Tejumola Kareem is an open secret and that the firm is a consultant to the Osun state Government is also not in doubt. We reject the poll as a product of jittery political camp holding to every straw for survival.

It is a global ethical practice that gallopers do not have vested interest in subjects they are dealing with to preserve integrity of their reports.A conflict of intérêst exists here. A conflict of interest (COI) is a situation occurring when an individual or organization is involved in multiple interests, one of which could possibly corrupt the motivation.The RMS has done a hatchet poll in Osun gubernatorial contest attempting to conceal the relationships between the organisation and Ogbeni Aregbesola.

We want to bring it to the attention of the public that the RMS Chairman, Alhaji Tejumola Kareem was a benefactor of Aregbesola in his struggling days in the 90’s. The firm was where the governor then technician Aregbesola trekked to regularly for “stomach infrastructure”. RMS was Aregbesola’s client as he was given the job of repairing RMS Air conditioners and refrigerators . We also know that Alhaji Kareem contributed immensely to Aregbesola Campaigns in 2007 and now.

The Governor had in turn been paying back by patronising the firm through multiple consultancy within the Osun state government.It is therefore clearly unprofessional for RMS not to declare its interest in the Osun election before engaging in this fictitious poll.

It was in pursuance of that relationship that RMS kept a criminal silence when Aregbesola started lying to the public that the company office was raided because of the poll in Osun. The RMS had undermined its credibility further by not clarifying that its brush with security agencies had to do with the security breach staff of the company committed in army barracks in Enugu in the course of its Guinness census. Officials of the firm had taken pictures of security installations prompting the arrest of it officials.

Besides the RMS poll as an hatchet job,we also want the public to note that the poll fly in the face of similar poll already released by internationally acclaimed bodies.It is on record that USAID ,United States Development Agency,had released a result of its survey which clearly put senator Omisore ahead in the August 9 poll.

For the avoidance of doubt,USAID polls put Omisore at 58%,Aregbe at 30% and others at 12%. It is clear that a compromised RMS cannot in any Way compare with USAID either on technical or Professional ground.

We urge the public to discountenance this last minute attempt to hoodwink the public.RMS is an APC outfit doing a propaganda for Aregbesola.Its poll lacks integrity, incredible and totally jaundiced because of vested interest.

Prince Diran Odeyemi

Director Of Media & Strategy