Kasim Sumaina in Abuja
Delta State Commissioner for Information, Charles Aniagwu, has said that the state’s 2023 governorship candidate of Social Democratic Party (SDP), Kenneth Gbagi, has been feeding the people with many lies through the news media out of desperation to win unmerited sympathy for his gubernatorial ambition.
The commissioner stated this at a media briefing in Asaba yesterday while reacting to certain claims by Gbagi in a television interview on Thursday on a number of issues relating to the 2023 election vis-a-vis his preparedness to prosecute governorship ambition.
Aniagwu pointed out that whereas the SDP governorship flagbearer was telling the people of the state that he would establish industries in the Delta, Gbagi was apparently unable to manage some of businesses well as they were suffering a downward trend.
Specifically, he accused the former minister of state for education of looking for an avenue to place his hands on the treasury of the state obviously with the intention of helping him revive his ailing businesses.
Aniagwu said that is was unfortunate that rather than telling the people what he hoped to do if given the chance to govern Delta State, the businessman and lawyer engaged himself in attempting to run down the Okowa administration by reeling out lies about the PDP government and his own imaginary entrepreneurial prowess which lacked empirical validation in the state.
“Perhaps, he needs money that belongs to Delta State government to revive his business that he ran aground”, he said while lamenting the fact that Gbagi was merely building castles in the air regarding claims that he was a successful entrepreneur who was determined to industrialize Delta State.
“We needed to make this clarification so that he does not deceive anybody. But I’m happy that Deltans already know him fairly well, that he does not have that capacity.
“You’ll recall what he did to some of his staff, the inhuman treatment though he keeps saying it’s a lie. But we know he does not have a record of treating people fairly”, the commissioner further said.
He added, “He also lied yesterday by saying he established nine universities in the country. I wonder if Gbagi was the president of Nigeria, because Goidluck Jonathan administration established universities.
“I don’t why a minister of state would be claiming, and informing Nigerians that he was the one who went about establishing universities. He didn’t even know when to step on the brakes when he went on that journey of lies!”
He derided the political value of the SDP gubernatorial candidate, saying he (Aniagwu) had strong doubts whether Gbagi could persuade even his close family members to vote him in 2023, adding that the man could hardly boast of scoring more than 20 votes in the 2023 election.
He insisted that Gbagi defected from PDP to a relatively unknown SDP in the state probably to avoid wasting money on his campaign.
“He merely wants to waste INEC’s ballot paper; he knows he’s not going to win, that he can’t even score 20 votes in the entire Delta State. I’m very convinced that some of his children won’t even vote for him.
“I know he can’t win even in his ward. His candidate for the Delta State House of Assembly could not win in his own ward; another person defeated him squarely. How can someone who couldn’t win in his own ward want to contest election in 270 wards? You don’t need a soothsayer to tell you that he can’t.
Aniagwu assured him that he would fail woefully in his apparent attempt to rubbish the administration of Governor Ifeanyi Okowa because the people of Delta State were witnesses to the visible achievements of the administration in all sectors, including widespread provision of road network, infrastructure as well as wealth and job creation.
The state information commissioner, who is also the official spokesman for the Atiku Abubakar-Ifeanyi Okowa PDP 2023 presidential campaign, dismissed claims that the PDP in Delta State was threatened by deep-seated division, saying that the party was in good shape to maintain its stranglehold on power since 1999.
“We are quite confident that; we know that the PDP winning machine is not weakened in the state. Very soon the campaign will commence and we have got what it takes. We will be able to speak to Nigerians and win their support.
“We are quite convinced that the PDP is going to enact what it has done in the last 23 years in the state. We are sure that PDP is Delta State and Delta State is PDP,” he said.
