2019: PDP can’t survive without rigging –Oshiomhole

The National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Comrade Adams Oshiomhole, has declared that the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) cannot survive without rigging elections. He, however, stated that the ruling party has dismantled PDP’s rigging machines ahead of 2019 elections.

Oshiomhole spoke at the weekend against the backdrop of a statement attributed to the National Chairman of PDP, Prince Uche Secondus, that the opposition party might boycott the 2019 elections. Secondus had, last week, accused security agencies and the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) of working against PDP in the Ekiti State governorship poll. But, while receiving the report of the Osun State governorship primaries, APC national chairman stated that PDP cannot survive without the rigging machines.

His words: “I heard him (Secondus) threatening that they may boycott 2019 general elections. When in the afternoon a rabbit jumps out of its hole, not because the hunter has come to smoke it out and it is running; you will know that it has already seen its end. “The truth is that we are not desperate; we have worked hard to defeat PDP while they were in power when they had no faction, when all the founding fathers and founding mothers were in the same house. Nigerian people rejected them on account of 16 years of absolute misrule.

“When oil sold for a $140 per barrel and we came in when oil price had dropped. If with all the huge revenue that accrued to them, people complained of bad roads whether from the South to East from the North to the West, they have nothing new to offer to the Nigerian people.

I think they are haunted by their own ghost and this is because they had perpetrated a do-or-die politics and they are on records that election matters are do-or-die affair. “One of their old men was recorded as saying that they (APC) have perfected the language of rigging them out. Let them go to court. Now rigging machines have been dismantled and their problem is how they can survive without it.

The glue that held them together, which was cheap money from treasury, again that has been cut off.” Oshiomhole said that PDP’s fear stems from the failure of their rigging machine as witnessed in the July 14th governorship election in Ekiti State.

He said: “So, our message to PDP is clear. Governor Abdullazizi Yari, you came from the opposition party in the past, I also came from an opposition party and we knew that we didn’t have a rigging machine; the only thing we had was instrument of persuasion, mobilization, explaining to people, convincing people and aligning with them and understanding that democracy was with the people at the grassroots. “But those who have lived on rigging machines – the one we call ward 16m – they are based in Abuja and their only access is to where electronics and papers exist. At old age, they can’t possibly learn new tricks and they can’t master the dialogue of electioneering which is why they got stuck in Ekiti and I am sure they would be flat in Osun.” Also, the APC has accused PDP of acting like a vulture.

The ruling party stated that it would continue to woo its members to stay in the party. The party’s National Publicity Secretary, Mallam Bolaji Abdullahi, faulted PDP for criticizing it (APC) for wooing its members not to defect. Abdullahi said: “After three years in the wilderness, the PDP is understandably excited with possibility of hiding its irredeemably bad image under the heap of a new coalition.

“Like the vulture, PDP sees every altercation as a potential opportunity for a feast. “If PDP is not alleging wild conspiracies, they are threatening to boycott elections or announcing fake defections. What is clear with all these is that no matter how long a leopard lives, it cannot change its spots.” Meanwhile, the PDP has described Oshiomhole as an undertaker of the ruling party. The opposition party said Oshiomhole was jittery over the mega coalition between the PDP and 38 other political parties.

The party said this was evident in Oshiomhole’s resort to insults and abuse of PDP and its leaders. In a statement yesterday by its National Publicity Secretary, Kola Ologbondiayn, PDP said the former labour leader is now licking his own vomit by going around cap in hand and begging the same compatriots whom he earlier called names like ‘inconsequential’, ‘hungry birds’ and ‘tired feet’, not to leave the APC. “Unfortunately for Oshiomhole and his presidential sponsor, events of the weeks ahead will clear all doubts that APC is dead and that Oshiomhole is just an undertaker, whose job is to cremate the derelict contraption by oppressors, who are falsely hailing themselves as messiahs,” the party added.

It described the move by Oshiomhole and President Muhammadu Buhari to persuade aggrieved APC members from leaving the party as fantasy trip. PDP further described the effort by Oshiomhole and President Buhari to stop the coalition as a lost battle, adding that Nigerians have already decided to vote-out President Buhari in 2019 “and replace him with a more competent, pan-Nigerian president.” “No amount of intimidation, threats, violence or even enticement of any kind can change this ironcast resolve.”

Newtelegraphonline