By Abiola Olawale
The Ondo State chapter of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has issued a statement criticizing Senator Abdullahi Ganduje, the National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC), for his remarks indicating that the party intends to replicate the strategy used to win the Edo State election in the upcoming Ondo State election.
The PDP declared that Ondo State is not like Edo State, vowing that the party will fight against any attempt to intimidate the people of the state.
Recall that Ganduje, while congratulating Edo State governor-elect, Senator Monday Okpebholo, revealed that the party intends to apply the successful strategic template utilized in the Edo State governorship election to secure victory in the upcoming November 16 election in Ondo State.
However, in a statement issued by the Ondo PDP’s Publicity Secretary, Kennedy Peretei, the PDP claimed that “Ganduje’s “vituperations were the surest confirmation that the election was rigged.”
The statement reads in part: ”The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Ondo State Chapter 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.
“Instead of being sober for subverting the will of the people, Ganduje rubbed salt on injury by saying that his party intends to control all the five South Eastern States.
“Perhaps it is important 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.
“Our party salutes the courage of the Edo State people for their remarkable performance in that election, despite INEC’s flagrant disobedience of their own rules.
“Everyone knows that most of the results announced at the State Collation Center 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 entire world was not only embarrassed but ashamed of what Prof Mahmood Yakubu’s sham called Edo State Governorship Election held on Saturday, 21st September 2024.
“While the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and the Nigerian Police were yet to clear themselves of partisanship and complicity in the election, National Chairman of All Progressives Congress (APC), Dr Abdullahi Ganduje, who flew into Benin with a Police helicopter was gloating in Abuja, that Ondo and Anambra would receive the Edo treatment when Governorship elections hold in these States.”
