APC Cannot Score up to 20% of Votes in Kogi, Bayelsa Elections, PDP Boasts

The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) on Thursday boasted that the All Progressives Congress (APC) and its governorship candidates cannot score up to 20 percent of the votes in the Kogi and Bayelsa States governorship elections taking place on November 16 respectively.

The PDP said in a statement signed by its National Publicity Secretary, Kola Ologbondiyan, that the APC would also fail to attain the statutory 25 percent of the votes in two-third of local government areas of the states, as it cannot boast of genuine followership having failed to consolidate any foothold in the two states.

According to PDP,  "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, who are ready for the polls, and not even the APC’s recourse to violence, blackmail, manipulations and rituals can sway the resolve of the people in both states.

"Moreover, there is already a consensus that APC candidates; the anti-people Governor Yahaya Bello of Kogi State and the unskilled David Lyon of Bayelsa State (APC candidate) are no match for PDP versatile governorship candidate, Musa Wada, and cerebral Senator Douye Diri’s popularity in their respective Kogi and Bayelsa 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."

PDP said the Kogi State election is a direct referendum against Governor Yahaya Bello whose administration has become synonymous with deprivation, poverty, violence and death, and most times, suicides.

The party stressed that the November 16 “is a date Bello must keep with millions of people 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 the governor from the crushing verdict of the ballot box.

"Our party, therefore, counsels Bello to desist from his crude blackmails and resort to thuggery as he would soon realise that he is now alone."

In Bayelsa State, the PDP said: “The APC, having no toehold in the state, is almost non-existent as the people are already rallied behind our candidate, Diri, in their collective quest to consolidate on the good governance entrenched by the state Governor, Seriake Dickson.

"The APC should know that there is no way the people of Bayelsa State will contemplate allowing a party which has proven to be anti-people, ideologically vacuous and corrupt to be anywhere near their government house," it said.

The party, therefore, counseled the APC to end its pipe-dream of winning in the two states as such is completely unattainable under the prevailing reality.