The All Progressives Congress, APC, yesterday, dared Governor Godwin Obaseki to walk with the candidate of his party, the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, Asue Ighodalo round the streets of Benin City and other parts of the state, if he would not end up with a bloody nose.
The party also called on its members still angry with the outcome of the governorship primaries that brought its current candidate, Senator Monday Okpebholo, to be true party members and work for APC’s victory, which it said would only be achieved as a united family.
Speaking during the inauguration of the local government and ward campaign councils of Oredo Local Government Area, the Deputy Governorship Candidate of the party, Dennis Idahosa, said a new APC government would continue from where Adams Oshiomhole stopped in terms of flood control, rebuilding public schools, checking insecurity, cultism and ensuring respect for the traditional institution.
“ Adams Oshiomhole has been out of government for eight years now. The current governor is Obaseki and he has been there for almost eight years.
“We want Obaseki to take the hands of his candidate, Asue Ighodalo and walk round the streets of Benin City and other places in the state and Oshiomhole will take the hand of Okpebholo and do the same thing and see what will happen. If Obaseki does not wear a helmet, he will come back bleeding because he is completely disconnected from the people,” he said.
I won’t listen to gossip – Okpebholo
On his part, Okpebholo said if elected, his administration “would not listen to gossip, we will be there to work for Edo people so that there will be progress in the state. We are ready to send them packing because they have failed us. I was in the local government of the PDP candidate and by the time I counted 30 things I had done in his place, they could not point to one thing that he had done for them.”
The Director General of the APC Campaign Council, Senator Matthew Uroghide, said the APC has done enough for the people to win the election including the party’s candidates who he said are sitting members of the National Assembly that have been working for their people.
Besides, he said Oredo is the heartbeat of politics in Edo South and that most of the political bigwigs in Oredo including himself who had been in different political parties are now all in one party so the victory of the party is sure.
Earlier in his opening remarks, the Director General of the Campaign Council in Oredo, Osaro Obazee called for unity of the members for victory.
He said: “I am overwhelmed with the quality and quantity of people here today. Not too long ago, we were all involved in our primary election and I recall that in our last meeting, some people still had deep anger. You have a choice when you are contesting a primary election but once a candidate has emerged, you can no longer have a personal interest except if you want to do anti-party activities which have consequences so we must work together.”
“We are not going to adopt the usual of campaigning, we have a new strategy and we will discuss that in our closed door meeting”.
