Top leaders of the Peoples Democratic Party in Edo State, including the party’s Chairman in Ikpoba Okha Local Government Area, Osawaru Ekhator, Onaiwu Igbogbo, Igbinoba Enoma, Victoria Aisagbonbuomwan, Alfred Igbinoba among others led over four thousand members of the party to join the All Progressives Congress at a mega rally to receive the defectors in Benin City yesterday.
Leader of the defectors and PDP Chairman of Chairmen, Mr. Osawaru Ekhator said he had to leave the PDP because it is a “party of full of deceit”. He said: “all they know is to criticize without doing anything. When we sat down and to examine what they are doing, we discovered that they are liars. PDP is a party that you cannot find a democrat in.”
Another decampee, and Ward Chairman of the PDP, Oniawu Igbogbo said, “we have been looking at the APC from afar, we have seen that our Comrade Governor has not been sleeping. He is working and we have decided that we need to join the cloud of glory. APC is the Cloud of glory. Every sensible person in Edo State should join the cloud of glory. God’s hand is with APC and God is moving APC forward. We promise you that we will use our abilities to join you to make progress in the state.”
Governor Adams Oshiomhole of Edo State who led APC leaders in the state to receive the decampees warned the PDP leaders fomenting trouble in the state that violence will consume them, saying “those who are preaching violence should know that Edo State cannot be conquered by a bunch of criminals. We have the capacity and the capability to protect ourselves. However, we will not go for anybody’s blood because we don’t need it.”
The Governor recalled, “last weekend, people who have nothing to offer, who have no stake in our environment were the ones rooting for violence. I am surprised that people who claim to be pastors, specifically, you need to know that that violence was organized at his office. It was at his campaign office that they held the meeting where it was decided that they should kill a number of people and they got the police support and they went to the legislative quarters with firearms and wanted to kill our assembly men.”
Oshiomhole noted, “the Pastor collected money promising that he will take over the House of Assembly and he failed. Contrary to their calculations, we have shown that we are totally in charge. We have presented our budget for 2015 when many PDP Governors are still struggling to prepare their budgets. Everything they think we cannot do, they saw that we are doing it better.
“When they were blocking the Ring Road, we moved our people out of the Ring Road. They could no longer block it, so out of frustration, they decided to resort to kill. When a man embarks on sucking the blood of young people, we leave him in the hands of God. I want to warn the Pastor, if he brings violence to Edo State, the violence will consume him. Anybody who brings violence to Edo State, violence will consume.
He said, “I want to advice all those who are preaching violence that Edo State cannot be conquered by a bunch of criminals. We have the capacity and the capability to protect ourselves. We will not go for anybody’s blood, we don’t need it.
The Governor said the party will create a level-playing field for all aspirants to operate saying he has no candidate for any position.
According to him, “Ours is a democratic Party. The people will choose their candidates. Whoever the people choose, we as faithful party members, we will support them. Where there is more than one candidate for a position, only one person will win.
“Let nobody say I am the Governor’s candidate. Everybody is my candidate and we will ensure that whoever emerges gets the backing and support of the Party. I want to thank you for your confidence, for your trust and for identifying with the party. I want to assure you that I understand clearly our selling point.
“APC’s selling point is development. We will build more schools, we will complete the Central Hospital, we will build more roads, we will sustain the work on erosion control, and we will sustain our free education programme. We will sustain our free bus ride to the Edo child. We will sustain our employment of youths and our support for market women.”
