A chieftain of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Rivers State, Prince Tonye Princewill has dismissed widespread insinuation that his party is set to deploy under-the-table methods to win the November 16 governorship election in Bayelsa and Kogi states.
He said crying wolf where there is none is a system that the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has successfully used to trounce the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the past.
In a statement to journalists, Princewill said all parties in the election have nothing to fear “but the verdict of the people.”
He buttressed his argument, “My home state, Rivers, is next door to Bayelsa. The political terrain in both states are similar.
This is how the PDP, was shouting that the APC was going to use ‘Federal Might’ in Rivers and other states like Akwa Ibom to dislodge the PDP in the last national elections, but what happened? I can tell you that President Muhammadu Bujari is the only incumbent president, since 1999, who has not manipulated the electoral process in his favour.”
Advancing more reasons for his position, Princewill said, “If Buhari had the inclination to influence the result in any state in favour of the APC, it would have been Rivers where the two-time Director General of his campaign and Minister of Transportation, Mr. Rotimi Amaechi, has a huge stake.
But he did not. In Akwa Ibom, PDP took the three senatorial districts, the 10 slots in the House of Representatives and all but one of the seats in the state house of assembly.
The PDP does not find that unwholesome in a state where some of the most popular politicians including the immediate past governor of the state and Minister of Niger Delta Affairs, Senator Godswill Akpabio and other patriots were on the platform of the APC.
“Instead of raising a false alarm, PDP members and contestants for offices in the two states should go to work seriously in a bid to convince voters to queue behind them.
‘What we have discovered over the years is the PDP uses this method of crying fowl, as a diversionary tactic while it perfects its rigging scheme.”
Princewill said that the recent achievements of the President at the Russia-Africa Summit in Sochi, saying this will impact positively on the fortunes of the APC in the impending Bayelsa and Kogi elections. “The seeds sown are beginning to germinate. I see a few reasons Nigerians should celebrate.
The first reason is the number of jobs that the 13 takeaways will bring. I don’t have the numbers of direct or indirect jobs that will be created, but even the blind can see that the total number of jobs created will be significant. To me the issue of jobs is the most important takeaway.”
