Akinwande Soji-Ojo
The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Ondo State, has reacted to the comments made by the All Progressives Congress (APC) National Chairman, Dr Abdullahi Ganduje, that the template deployed to win the governorship election in Edo State would be adopted to win the November 16 election in Ondo State.
Ganduje had while hosting members of the party’s situation room for the Edo State governorship election in Abuja, on Monday, said the approach used to win the election in Edo would be adopted for Ondo State governorship poll.
The chairman added that his party would continue to extend its influence in the South East and South West.
Reacting to Ganduje’s comments in a statement by its Publicity Secretary, Kennedy Peretei, Ondo PDP described the outcome of Edo State election as not only embarrassing, but shameful.
The party said it would like to remind Ganduje that “Ondo State is not one of the states where the people can be intimidated or cowed.”
“Our people are very enlightened and resilient. When the defunct National Party of Nigeria (NPN) attempted to subvert the will of the people, the people proved to the Shagari government that they were different. That tradition has not died.
“Besides, the present democratic dispensation in which he is a beneficiary was watered with the blood of many Nigerians. It is advisable Ganduje does not go down into oblivion as one of its undertakers,” Peretei said.
He further noted that Ganduje’s comments were coming when the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and the Nigerian police were yet to clear themselves of partisanship and complicity in the just concluded election.
The Publicity Secretary said his party believes that most Nigerians at home and in the diaspora are beginning to lose hope “in our hard-earned democracy when major players like Ganduje openly allude to the fact that their votes will not count as long as men like him hold influential positions.”
“Ganduje’s vituperations were the surest confirmation that the election (Edo poll) was rigged. Instead of being sober for subverting the will of the people, Ganduje robbed salt on injury by saying that his party intends to control all the five South Eastern states,” Peretei stated.
He said the party salutes the courage of the people of Edo State for what he described as their remarkable performance in the election, “despite INEC’s flagrant disobedience of their own rules.”
“Everyone knows that most of the results announced at the state collation centre were fabricated, as the figures were different from those uploaded into the INEC Irev portal.
“The people of Edo State could never have elected a man who promised to bring ‘insecurity to Edo State’.
“Let Ganduje first give the ‘Edo Treatment’ to his people in Kano State, where he was humiliated by a relatively unknown New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP) in last year’s gubernatorial election,” the statement added.