The All Progressives Congress (APC) in Delta State had condemned the State Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) allegation that the planned visit of President Muhammadu Buhari to Delta State is a plot to perfect rigging plans for the APC governorship candidate in the state.
PDP had in a statement by the State Publicity Secretary, Dr. Michael Osuoza, on Monday, chided the president for not allowing level playing field for all candidates in the elections coming up on Saturday.
An APC leader in Delta, O’tega Emerho, argued that there was nothing wrong for President Buhari to visit Warri to mobilise support for the APC candidate, thus, dismissing the PDP allegation that Buhari’s visit to Warri was to perfect the APC’s rigging plans in the state towards the March 9, Governorship and State House of Assembly Elections.
Emerho said the President’s visit is a move in the right direction to strengthen the APC structure and reposition the party to take over power from the PDP, which had been on ground in the state for the past 20 years.
“It is not a crime that Mr. President is in Warri to garner support for the APC, this is election period.
”We are still campaigning, campaigns will end on Thursday and the president has the right to go to places where he feels that people will be excited to see him and support him.
“’In 2015, we did not contribute much to electing the President, but this time, we went to town and said look he is our President, he has done well and for the first time we gave him massive support.
“Delta State is a tough state, but we gave over 25 per cent of the votes to Mr President, so, we are very excited and happy that he has been returned for four more years to continue and move the country to the next level.
“He has set up a strong foundation and you will see that in the next four years Nigeria will really progress.
“When you have a PDP in the state for 20 years and they never allowed elections to hold; for the first time election will hold because the state is tired of PDP and want to join the mainstream APC,” he declared.
However, APC State Chairman, Prophet Jones Erue, said Buhari was not visiting Warri for partisan politics but was visiting because of the demands of the people of Delta.
“’Ordinarily, I should have not responded or reply to the State PDP Chairman because I have called on him repeatedly that we should have a national debate and talk about issues that affect our state.
“To start attacking the President of Nigeria, the Commander-in-Chief, because he decided to visit a state is an insult, it is a joke carried too far and that is not politics, it is disrespect.
“He is the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and the President-elect; he chooses to visit were he wants to go; it is not the duty of any Nigerian to choose where he should visit’’ Erue said.