Shola Oyeyipo in Abuja
Less than three days to the election to determine the leadership of the 9th Assembly, the Director-General, Hon. Femi Gbajabiamila/Hon. Ahmed Wase campaign organisation, Hon. Abdulmumini Jibrin, has hinted that the All Progressives Congress (APC) candidates have offered a faction of the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) members committee leadership slots.
This is however contrary to the position of the national chairman of APC, Comrade Adams Oshiomhole, that PDP will not get any committee chairmanship seat in the 9th Natoonal Assembly except the constitutionally stipulated public accounts committee.
Jibrin, who made the revelation during a chat with journalists at the Fraser Hotels and Suites, Abuja Saturday, said his party was sparing no effort in poaching the rank of the opposition party ahead of the election slated for Tuesday.
“As it is today, the reality of the matter is that the PDP has been split into two factions. We have closed down a deal with one of the factions and for the other faction we are still talking. But also understand that we are only doing that as a safety net. We do not need the whole of the PDP to win our election.
In fact, you may not even need a vote from the PDP because we are defending our 223 votes religiously! But as a safety net, we already have over 60 members of the PDP working with us.
“In 2015 there was a bit of complacency because APC was only guiding its votes. We believed then that we had the numbers to win the election, so we weren’t bothered about the PDP, but PDP were concentrating on how to poach the APC and that was how the election was won. But this time around, APC is much more comfortable because we have more number. We have 223, but even at that our campaign is more aggressive yo get more PDP than the aggression of PDP members trying to poach our members.”
“Then the secondary aspect of it is that we have offer for the opposition party and they have accepted it. The over 60 of them, they are going to 60 offices. It means every one of them will have a position to hold. If what they need in terms of committee have been sorted then what else?”
Jibrin said as the election date draws closer, the campaign team is assured of victory.
According to him, “It has never looked so bright. It has never looked so sure – so clear to us that we are going to win the election. Though we cannot take anything for granted; we cannot allow ourselves to be victims of once bitten twice shy and the good thing is that we are all coming from the background of the experience of 2015. So, we have taken every measure humanly possible to ensure that by the grace of God we are going to win the election.”
He reiterated that “These number of PDP working with us, there is nothing you can do to change their minds, because their support for Gbajabiamila and Wase is based on conviction that they are competent to occupy the position.”
