Shola Oyeyipo in Abuja
About 48 hours to determine the leadership of the ninth National Assembly, the Director General, Hon. Femi Gbajabiamila/Hon. Ahmed Wase Campaign Organisation, Hon. Abdulmumini Jibrin yesterday disclosed that the candidates had offered a faction of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) members 60 committee leadership slots.
Jibrin made the revelation during a chat with journalists at the Fraser Hotels and Suites, Abuja saying the APC “is sparing no effort in poaching the rank of the opposition party ahead on the election slated for Tuesday.”
He said, “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 we 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 the APC was only guiding its votes. We believed then that we had the number to win the election. So, we were not bothered about the PDP.
“But the PDP were concentrating on how to poach the APC and that was how the election was won. But this time around, the APC is much more comfortable because we have more number. We have 223, but even at that our campaign is more aggressive 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. At least, we have 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. 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. We have a good number of PDP members 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.”
