*Says ‘No one shot at us, no single violence throughout our campaign’
The governorship candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party in Kogi State, Senator Dino Melaye, has listed lessons learnt from the November 11 governorship election in Kogi State, noting that Kogi East Senatorial District suffered defeat because it did not collaborate with other zones.
He said one key take home from the governorship election was that Kogi East people now know “more than ever before” that they cannot win the governorship seat without support from other Senatorial districts.
Melaye, who represented Kogi West Senatorial District in the 8th Assembly, added that Kogi West should also learn from the last election and listen to the words of wisdom from the elders, “not from commercialised characters who because of their individual and selfish interests created problems for us.”
He spoke during a dinner organised in his honour by members of his campaign organisation in Abuja, on Thursday.
“One of the lessons is that the East now knows more than ever before that they cannot become governor alone.
“You will have to collaborate with another zone to become governor. We went through these elections, irrespective of the outcome, irrespective of betrayals, and so many things,” the PDP candidate said.
Apparently buttressing the government’s stance that Kogi State is peaceful, the former Senator confirmed that he had a very peaceful campaign, insisting that all his tours were devoid of violence.
He said, “Throughout the campaign, not once did we have any gunshot at us. Not even once. We were moving around the state throughout the dead nights. In fact, we even went to Bassa.
“We were driving through that very lonely road on unholy hours of the night. We got to Anyigba at about hours like 12 midnight or 1am and the kind of stories of gunshots, there were no cases of gunshots at us or the kind of killings like what we were told when the SDP visited any other place in the East.
“We didn’t experience any of such, we didn’t lose any soul. This, we are grateful to God.”
He also berated some leaders of the West for not wholeheartedly working with him, saying they contributed to his defeat.
“There was this very false message that some leaders from the West that one of my leaders said that I wanted to create confusion. Yet some leaders insisted and said this is what they were going to do. Everybody has been served breakfast.
“I want to believe that by the grace of God, we have learnt a lot of lessons from this election. We gave Kogi the type of campaign they have never seen. That’s the truth,” he noted.
Melaye, however, gave himself and his team thumbs up for running “a sophisticated campaign.”
“We had a policy document that took about three months to put together and we had the message and we went round. And by the grace of God, we cannot also say we lost because there was no election.
“By the time we do the statistics, what we spent in this election has never been spent by PDP in the history of Kogi State. We know. I mean, we know that,” he said.
Urging his supporters not to despair, Melaye said they should not lose hope as there would be another opportunity in the near future.
“So, we need not get disillusioned. It’s not to get disenchanted. It’s not to get discouraged.
“It’s for us to hold ourselves together as a political family and say what we lost on the streets, we will regain at the roundabout. And this election also taught a lot of lessons,” he stated.
