As political parties warm up for the November governorship election in Ondo State, the Lucky Aiyedatiwa Campaign Organisation Foot Soldiers Independent Council (LACO-FSIC) has scoffed at the continued attack on Governor Lucky Aiyedatiwa through serialised articles, by the state’s branch of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), solely mocking the April 20 primary election of the All Progressives Congress (APC).
The LACO-FSIC in a response through its State Director of Information, Mr. Kayode Fasua, on Monday described the PDP in Ondo State as “an incurable interloper, intruder, encroacher, invader, and a peeper; leaving their political party to rot in limbo but continue to fret over the affairs of the APC”.
Fasua, countering Ondo PDP spokesman, Mr. Kennedy Peretei, in his series entitled, “How Lucky will be Lucky come November”, stated that “Ondo PDP’s insipid interference and meddlesomeness in the affairs of the APC is no more than a product of the twin-evil of envy and idleness.”
“Laughably, the only information known to the public about the preparations of the PDP for the coming governorship election is the writing of serialised articles to disparage the April 20 APC primary election that produced Governor Lucky Aiyedatiwa as Flagbearer; nothing more.
“While that strange obsession will be addressed shortly, everyone should know that the PDP is primed for humiliation soon, as its governorship flagbearer said to have been produced through a smooth primary election looks unlikely to find it smooth addressing the public in English language, which is a dampener for a state as educationally advanced as Ondo.”
The LACO-FSIC spokesman, however, described Peretei’s description of the APC primary election as a sham and an event that never held, as the judgement of a blind-folded umpire.
“This is because, in the first place, there was no crisis or riot of people protesting injustice in the conduct of the primary election, in all the 203 wards of the state.
“Though voting materials might have arrived late in a few places owing to some socio-economic challenges, devout party members waited and in the end, voted for candidates of their choice.
“And in line with the party’s rules and regulations, a total of 1,015 APC delegates drawn from the 203 wards of the 18 local council areas, at five delegates per ward, met in Akure, right before the Governor Usman Ododo-led Electoral Committee that conducted the poll, and affirmed the result of the primary election.
“Mr. Peretei who seems interested in the APC by his series of articles presented in well-composed and thrilling words, will herein be enlightened that not all the 1,015 delegates were supporters of Aiyedatiwa at that level (as all had their different, preferred candidates); yet, none of them found fault with the result; they all affirmed it,” Fasua explained.
He thus noted that the process alone had put a lie to the claim by the PDP, that the APC at the national level could not declare Aiyedatiwa winner of the election because the electoral agents could not produce certified true copies of result sheets from their respective local government areas.
“So, if Mr. Peretei’s claim is true, why did the APC National Chairman, His Excellency, Dr. Abdullahi Ganduje, publicly hand Governor Lucky Aiyedatiwa the certificate of return and party governorship flag? We leave the public to judge.”
The LACO-FSIC Information Director also tasked the PDP to check the performance track of the Aiyedatiwa-led administration since the incident of Governor Rotimi Akeredolu’s death, which necessited the ascension of the current governor, late December last year; against the backdrop of inescapable strains across sectors, as President Bola Tinubu continued with far-reaching reforms of the Nigerian economy.
“When Governor Aiyedatiwa took over as substantive governor, he drastically cut down on recurrent expenditure and up-scaled capital expenditure to source funds for re-mobilising contractors back to site, so as to rev up work on road infrastructure, agricultural programmes and health and educational development.
“The governor immediately commenced the payment of the new minimum wage to public workers and cleared several backlogs of unpaid salaries and allowances, and also went far-afield to do same to unpaid pensions and gratuities, to put smiles on the faces of retirees.
“More to that, Mr. Governor, as a measure to cushion the effects of the hardship occasioned by the removal of petroleum subsidy, commenced monthly payment of palliative wage of N35,000 to every civil servant, and also released free bus shuttles to government workers and school children.
“As for the masses in the non-formal sector, Governor Aiyedatiwa made available over N2 billion to serve as soft loans for artisans, petty traders, and peasant farmers, to keep them in business and prosperity.
“Therefore, it amounts to the prosaic theatre of the absurd for anyone to run to the market square with the tar brush, painting the picture of Ondo State people not wanting Aiyedatiwa to continue in office; tut, it’s a lie!” Fasua exclaimed.
