Daniel Kanu
Assistant Politics Editor
As Saturday, March 23, 2019, for the rerun elections in Benue, Kano, Sokoto, Adamawa and Plateau States draws closer both the ruling party, All Progressives Congress (APC) and the opposition party, People’s Democratic Party (PDP) have insisted they would win the supplementary election.
The two dominant party are already boasting and claiming victory ahead of the poll.
In separate statements on Monday both parties advanced arguments to prove that only a favourable outcome was possible.
A statement by PDP’s national publicity secretary, Kola Ologbondiyan, made available to TheNiche noted that the chances of the party were as clear as day light.
The statement noted: “In Benue, it is clear that the people have rejected the APC as clearly demonstrated even in the presidential election. Benue State has always been home to the PDP. It is incontestable that our party has the largest genuine followership in all the units, wards and local government areas of the state and as such does not need any underhand measure to secure victory in any election in the state.
“Our winning lead of 81,000 votes was validly delivered at the polling units and that reality will humiliate the APC, as it cannot be subverted.”
But the APC maintained that the opposition is set for humiliation in that state.
The national publicity secretary, Lanre Issa-Onilu, said there was nothing to fear as the state “remains an APC territory”.
He said: “Even though the PDP claims a bogus lead of over 81,000 votes, reports strongly establish that this dodgy figure is an aggregate of ‘votes’ obtained by subterfuge not from the numbers recorded by the card reader. There were cases in Logo, Gwer-West, Vandeikya, Guma, Buruku and Gboko Local Governments where the card reader was not used.
“INEC also reported that 41 polling units in Vandeikya did not use the card reader, as it was the case in many areas in Gwer-West, Gwer-East, Gboko and other places. There is no doubt that our candidate obtained the highest number of legitimate votes obtained with the usage of the card reader.”
On Sokoto, the ruling party noted: “Sokoto is a strong APC state. This rubbishes, the suspicious and apparently stolen results ascribed to the PDP governorship candidate. It is on record how the PDP candidate and state governor, Aminu Tambuwal, used thugs and fake security agents to scare voters in the state.
“This gave PDP agents a free and field day to rig and manipulate the governorship election. The forthcoming supplementary election in Sokoto State gives the APC, our governorship candidate, Aliyu Ahmed, and indeed the Sokoto electorate an opportunity to claim our mandate.”
For Sokoto state, PDP said “The people are yearning and ready to prove a point: That Sokoto is fully in love with the party and will prove that at the poll”.
