Admin l Thursday, July 12, 2018
LAGOS, Nigeria – Ahead of Saturday’s governorship election, coming in Ekit State, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has called on its members in the state not to be intimidated by whatever the opposition All Progressives Congress (APC), which is the ruling party at the centre may want to do to intimidate, as the party. The party said is ready to confront the APC or its agents and ensure a free and fair election in the state.
The PDP disclosed this while addressing the newsmen in Lagos today by its National Vice Chairman (South West), Dr. Eddy Olafeso.
He said that despite the alleged assault on the governor of Ekiti State by the Police on Wednesday at a campaign rally of the party, that nothing the APC government or its agents does that it will be intimidated to abandon its course of ensuring that the people of Ekiti and indeed all Nigerians continue to enjoy their freedom in safety.
Some of the PDP leader, who joined at the briefing includes: Secretary of the PDP in Lagos State, Prince Muiz Dosunmu, State Legal Adviser, Muyideen Tejumade, State Publicity Secretary, Taofeek Gani, a 2019 governorship aspirant in the state Mr. Adedeji Doherty among others.
The party said it was determined to ensure that it wins the Ekiti election and all other elections in the country, so as to liberate the people from the hardship they are currently facing under the APC leadership.
“In Ekiti State yesterday our party was beleaguered, the governor of Ekiti State, Dr. Peter Ayodele Fayose was seriously manhandled by the police and the excuse we are getting is the fact that they did that in order to prevent crisis in Ekiti. But it is on record that Ayodele Fayose has maintained peace in Ekiti since he assumed office in 2014 till date without any form of crisis.
“We did our mega rally in Ekiti State there was no crisis, the APC came in, apart from shooting themselves they heated up the polity and eventually made everything look as if Armageddon is on its way. APC’s attitude to governance has been an attitude to contain and curtail the freedom of our people, ensure they force themselves upon us even when they are not doing very well.
“These are some of the reasons why I said I must speak to our people to remain resolute and committed and to make sure that nobody is cowed or nobody is scared away from the agenda of our party to ensure that we wrestle power from these people in 2019.
“As for the event in Ekiti, we have alerted the Nigerian people and the comments of the APC leadership, from their current chairman to the candidate who came in there for his second attempt at getting power from Ekiti people and doing nothing about it is the fact that they want to use federal might to hijack power rather than using the political process.
“The PDP is ready and will confront whatever machination they put in place and we will say no to what they are attempting to do to our people. Ekiti people needs our support, Ekiti people needs our understanding to know that they have the inalienable right to select whoever they want to be their governor and that the PDP will not want to do that on the blood of our people.
“This country is yearning for leadership, the last few years has been abysmal failure on the part of leadership to stem the tide of insecurity, to stem the tide of poverty, to stem the tide of unemployment, to bring Nigeria to the level of parity with its rank in the international community,” he said.
Olafese therefore described the current political climate in the country as the darkest hour.
“This is to express our mind and our innate fears about what is happening in the political space in this country.This is the darkest moments in our country, the last three years has witnessed a spiral into the abyss of poverty, despair and desperation and it appears it has no end, the killings are coming in flood, yesterday in Taraba State 42 people were killed and 12 villages ransacked.
“Events that happened in Ekiti State yesterday became a very serious issue for our party. The party national chairman, Prince Uche Secondus has raised alert to all the state chapters of the party across the 36 states including the FCT and the price of freedom is eternal vigilance and we must to be vigilant to what is happening with the APC government and the collusion with security forces and sometimes interdem with some of the institutions that are meant to play major roles in ushering in the process of democracy and selecting our leaders,” he said,
