Ahead of the
November 16 governorship election in Kogi State, the Peoples Democratic
Party (PDP) in the state has raised the alarm over an alleged plot to
use the state judiciary to disqualify its governorship candidate, Musa
Wada by ensuring that his name does not appear on the ballot papers.
The
plot, PDP said through a statement signed by Faruk Adejoh Audu, the
Head of the Muda Audu Campaigns in the state, named both the state
government and the PDP Vice Chairman Ogugu Ward 3, Olamaboro Local
Government Area, Mr. John Abraham as the main culprits.
The party
said that the Kogi State government, and the All Progressives
Congresses (APC) have perfected plans to use the Kogi State judiciary to
disqualify Audu for the violence that took place during the PDP
governorship primary election that resulted in one death and injuries to
many in the state.
PDP in Kogi state said that the pliant ward
chairman of PDP, Mr. Edward Onoja, who is from the same local government
area with the running mate of Governor Yahaya Bello, was induced with
the sum of N20 million to agree to be used as a litigant to undermine
the primaries of the PDP.
“As at the time of the conversation,
this rural PDP executive member of humble means has already been
generously given the sum of one million to meet four lawyers including a
Senior Advocate of Nigerian(SAN) hired by Bello’s government to execute
their atrocious plot. We challenge the outgoing government to deny
these revelations.
“We heard of this plot immediately it was
hatched and expected that they will go to court and serve us with the
processes to enable us join issues immediately, but it’s now obvious
that there’s a sinister twist to even this craven process because whilst
there’s been reports of the suit in the media since almost three weeks
ago, we have neither been served nor have we been able to confirm in
what court it was instituted or if it was instituted at all”.
PDP
in the state further stated that the Bello campaign has continued to
boast and threaten that the PDP will not have a candidate at the polls
until the court has decided.
According to the statement from PDP
in the state, “the latest of these threats was the one uttered by the
campaign Director General, Former Senator Representing Kogi West
District, Mr. Smart Adeyemi at a press conference in Lokoja on Friday.
“This
is the third time Mr. Adeyemi is openly bragging that the PDP candidate
will be excluded from the ballot because its primaries were flawed.
Before him, Mr Bello’s running mate had equally bragged in a WhatsApp
chatroom that the PDP will have no candidate because the primaries were
inconclusive.
“The lynchpin of their desperate confidence is
based on the sporadic gun attack on the venue of the primaries when the
process was drawing to a close.
“If anyone ever doubted those
behind the criminal attack which took place unchallenged in the presence
of security agencies and less than half a kilometre from the Kogi State
Department of State Services (DSS), Mr. Adeyemi and Mr. Onoja seem to
have not only confirmed the involvement of the outgoing government but
they have also betrayed the motive of the vicious gun attack”, PDP
stated.
PDP said that the attack was to prevent the Kogi PDP from
presenting a candidate because the window for primaries in INEC
timetable ended on September 5, a date which would have been impossible
for the party to plan and hold another primaries if their gun attack had
been successful in aborting the process.
PDP said, “rather than
hide their face in shame for this failed criminal act, the desperate APC
lords of violence have been unwittingly advertising their culpability
in the dastard enterprise. What is unfolding from the gun attacks, to
the clandestine litigation, the bravado of Mr. Adeyemi and Mr. Onoja
declaring inconclusive a process certified even by INEC is a clear
picture of a very petrified candidate Yahaya Bello who having squandered
his tenure inflicting poverty, hunger and violence on the people and
attracted ill-will is now desperate to use subterfuge to eliminate every
viable opponent from the ballot,” PDP explained.
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