- Says APC cannot score 20% of votes in Kogi, Bayelsa
- Warns Buhari and INEC to allow free, fair elections
The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) may have intimidated Governor Yahaya Bello, candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the November 16 governorship election, with the declaration that the ruling party will not score up to 20% votes in Kogi State. The PDP was of the view that the people have rejected the APC, stating that the party’s unpopular governorship candidates cannot score up 20 per cent of the votes in the November 16 Kogi and Bayelsa states governorship elections, respectively.
The PDP also said that the APC will also fail to attain the statutory 25 per cent of the votes in two-third of local governments of the states, arguing that APC cannot boast of genuine followership having failed to consolidate any foothold in the two states.
The party stated that this is so because it is overwhelmingly evident that the PDP has the highest demography of members, supporters and volunteers in all the electoral units, wards and local governments, ready for the polls; remarking that not even the APC’s recourse to violence, blackmail, manipulations and rituals can sway the resolve of the people in both states.
The PDP maintained that moreover, there is already a consensus that APC’s candidates; the anti-people Governor Yahaya Bello of Kogi State, as well as unskilled David Lyon of Bayelsa State, are no match for PDP’s versatile Engr. Musa Wada and cerebral Senator Douye Diri’s popularity in their respective states.
“For the people of Kogi State, the November 16 election is a determined march for freedom; for inevitable emancipation from the stranglehold of the repressive, vindictive, exploitative and corrupt APC administration.
“The Kogi election is a direct referendum against Governor Yahaya Bello whose administration has become synonymous with deprivation, poverty, violence and death, most times by suicides.
“November 16 is a date Governor Yahaya Bello must keep with the millions he viciously deprived of their means of livelihood; a date with millions who have suffered untold hardship over unpaid salaries and pensions; a date with Kogi youths whose common patrimony he squandered in his reckless wasteful misgovernance; indeed, nothing will deliver Governor Bello from the crushing verdict of the ballot box.
“Our party, therefore, counsels Governor Bello to desist from his crude blackmails and resort to thuggery, as he would soon realize that he is now alone,” PDP declared.
The PDP maintained: “In Bayelsa, the APC, having no toehold, is almost non-existent as the people are already rallied behind our candidate, Senator Diri, in their collective quest to consolidate on the good governance entrenched by Governor Seriake Dickson.”
The PDP warned that APC should know that there is no way the people of Bayelsa will contemplate allowing a party which has proven to be anti-people, ideologically vacuous and corrupt, to be anywhere near their Government House.
The PDP, therefore, counseled the APC to end its pipe-dream of winning in the two states as such is completely unattainable under the prevailing reality.