The All Progressive Congress (APC) Campaign Council in Kogi (KOSACC), has accused the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) of hiring people from seven neighboring states for its presidential campaign rally on Saturday in Kogi.
Mr Kingsley Fanwo, the Director of Media and Publicity KOSACC, stated this at a press conference on Monday in Lokoja, tagged: ”The Many Lies of PDP and its Traditional Illusions in Kogi State”.
Fanwo also said the PDP was dismayed by the poor turnout, and resorted to theatrics of rolling out expired individuals who had been expunged from the ranks of the APC for their unsavory deeds and characters as defectors and proceeded to canonise them.
”The rally turned into a farce when people like the former Deputy Governor of the State, Elder Simeon Achuba and the former speaker of the state assembly, Rt Hon. Alfa Imam were repackaged for Atiku as Kogi APC stalwarts who were decamping to the PDP at the rally.
”What Atiku and his entourage might not have known is that this is the same Achuba who was impeached from office with ignominy by the state assembly for gross misconduct during the first term of the administration.
”He (Achuba) rejoined his former bedmates in the PDP ahead of the 2019 general elections and failed to deliver even his own Ward in that year’s presidential, legislative and gubernatorial elections.
”Rt. Hon. Alfa Imam is another has-been whose poor leadership pitched him in a running battle with his colleagues when he was Speaker of the State House of Assembly. At the cusp of being impeached, he pleaded to be allowed to resign.
”He was obliged and he too left office and our party in 2019. Shortly he decamped to the SDP, another rickety platform in Kogi State where his presence was as ineffectual as his departure was unfelt in the APC.
”We won the 2019 landslide without them. Since then, the two men have failed in their political self-delusions and have continued to fail,” Fanwo said.
He stressed that the PDP campaign rally in Kogi was a shadow of itself, saying the umbrella circus did not need anyone to tell them that Kogi people have rejected them.
Fanwo stressed that it was painfully obvious that the former ruling party had been fittingly reduced to a shadow of itself in Kogi over the last seven years.
”We know that PDP brought a lot of people from seven neighboring states for the campaign rally in Kogi, because they needed to justify the dollars from the Dubai based presidential candidate of PDP.
”Talking about 148,000 defectors at Kogi rally by PDP is too ridiculous and not true.
”The innocents who did turn out for them in vain hope of hearing anything which might persuade them to reevaluate their poor opinion of the PDP left reinforced in their disdain for people whose stint in government brought their state, nay, country, to their knees.
”Even their diehard members who came in expectations of the usual largesse associated with the party in her heyday became dispirited when the lies started.
”The rest of our people went about their normal businesses, utterly disinterested in the hollow antics of a party that once wasted 13 precious years for them,” Fanwo said.
Fanwo, who is the State’s Commissioner for Information and Communication Strategy, said there was no doubt that the Yahaya Bello-led APC administration had changed the face of Kogi State.
”The legacy projects executed, some of which were recently commissioned by Mr President, are too numerous to mention here.
”The Research and Strategy Directorate of the PDP Presidential Candidate should have interacted with civil servants in Kogi State to find out how the State Government is not owing a single month’s salary.
”Even the months owed by Wada and bequeathed to Yahaya Bello in 2016 have been cleared. They made a caricature of Atiku by making him lie to the faces of the good people of Kogi State,” he said.
Fanwo also said that the pledge of Atiku to revive the Ajaokuta Steel Company could only be classified as a ‘morbid joke’, which he (Atiku) must have made to insult the sensibilities of Kogi State and her people.
Fanwo added: ”We are familiar with how the Privatisation Council under his supervision sold national assets to his friends and cronies. Some of the scandals around such are still in courts around the world till date.
”President Muhammadu Buhari has taken a bold step on the gigantic project and we trust the President in Waiting, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu to see the process through.
”The PDP flagbearer also assured the lecture theater crowd culled for him from 7 states that he would win the 2023 Presidential polls. This is the illusion of the decade already, as he will be resoundingly defeated by the Presidential Candidate of the All Progressives Congress.
”It is even looking as if his boy, who admitted publicly that Atiku was his master who trained and settled him, might take more voter share than him in this race. Anyway, he is used to losing in politics and he will lose again on 25th February.
”We are on course to deliver Kogi State massively for the All Progressives Congress and maintain the legacy of the party in the state under the leadership of Governor Yahaya Bello.
”We urge our members to remain peaceful, law abiding but continue to work hard to ensure that we set a record with our numbers in the February and March polls.
”Finally, we wish to use this medium to appreciate Alhaji Atiku Abubakar for calling on his audience to vote for APC in the Presidential election.
”Although he tried to take it back, we got his message loud and clear. As far as we are concerned, it was the most candid thing to come out of that rally.
”He understands that it is the APC that can continue to steer the nation away from the corruption, misrule and insecurity that characterized the reign of PDP in Nigeria.”
