•Urges SDP defectors to kill APC with their votes in 2023
Victor Ogunje in Ado Ekiti
National chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Dr Iyorchia Ayu, yesterday, said the party’s leadership has taken responsibility for its poor outing during the recent governorship election in Ekiti State, in which the PDP came third.
Ayu, who spoke in Ado-Ekiti while receiving members of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) in Ekiti State, under the auspices of ‘Ekiti Progressives’, urged the defectors to deploy their permanent voters card (PVCs) to halt the All Progressives Congress (APC) maladministration in 2023.
The SDP members had left the PDP in the build-up to the June 18 governorship election, due to former governor Ayodele Fayose’s alleged despotism in the party.
Represented by the National Deputy Chairman (South), Taofeek Arapaja, Ayu expressed regrets over the abysmal outcome of the last governorship election, adding that the party’s national leadership accepted responsibility over the PDP failure and apologised to the aggrieved members.
“I am happy to welcome you back to the party, because we can’t do it alone in a bid to rescue this nation from the APC that has destroyed this country across sectors. We need to change this APC through our PVCs, we should chase them out. You can do it.
“Let me say that Ekiti belongs to PDP and we should go out massively to mobilise for our candidate and his running mate to rescue us from the problems we are facing under the APC. I want to make it clear that what happened during the June 18 poll was caused by us, we must admit that it is our fault, not your fault and we are asking for forgiveness. Please, forgive us; it won’t happen again.
“It is obvious that you have shown your strength in SDP by coming second in that election and we know had it been we worked together, it would have been a different story today. I want to plead we work together to deliver our candidates in 2023 and we’ll return to the Villa.”
He said the presidential candidate of the PDP, Atiku Abubakar and his running mate, Ifeanyi Okowa, were well-experienced and possessed the acumen to proffer solutions to the challenges of insecurity, unemployment, ethnic mistrust and other ills pummeling the nation.
Speaking, the duo of Senator representing Ekiti South Senatorial District, Biodun Olujimi and PDP House of Representatives candidate for Ekiti South Federal Constituency One, Henrich Akomolafe, said the party had learned its lessons from the past election.
He called on the returnees to commence mobilisation from their communities towards delivering all the PDP candidates in 2023 elections.
Olujimi, while addressing the ex-SDP devotees, said the abysmal performance of the party in the last governorship election showed that something was wrong with the PDP.
“We should all share the blame. Some of us didn’t do what we were supposed to do. Some of us over-reacted, some were singing Hosanna and when should have done the right thing. They left us and they showed us that without them, we are nothing.
“They scored 82,000 votes that was supposed to be for the PDP in that election. But there is no pride in rebellion. They have come back to rejoin PDP. We believe that only Atiku/Okowa are the people with capability to bring food to our table, solve insecurity problem, bring back our children to school.”
Coordinator of the returnees, Wale Ayeni, said they were treated like strangers during the PDP governorship primary, a development he said forced them out of the party to join the SDP.
