The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has berated the National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC) Abdullahi Ganduje for allegedly saying that his party would dislodge the PDP governance in Ondo and Osun States and by extension, capture the entire South-West.
Both the National PDP and States expressed serious reservations to Ganduje’s comment.
The National Publicity Secretary of the PDP, Debo Ologunagba, while speaking at the party’s National Secretariat, Abuja, described Ganduje’s submission as reckless and threatening.
He critisised Ganduje harshly for his choice of words, saying the dictionary meaning of the word ‘capture,’ which Ganduje reportedly used, involves forceful control/occupation and enslavement, stressing that “we cannot be enslaved in our own land.”
Ologunagba stated that the South-West has always been the bastion of opposition and democracy, noting that for the APC National Chairman to come to Ondo State to issue such a threat is worrisome.
According to him, comments as that of Ganduje’s was what scuttled the First Republic, the ‘wetie’ in the 1960s, adding that history repeated itself in 1983 when the ruling National Party of Nigerian (NPN) made attempts to force Akin Omoboriowo as governor in Ondo State.
Pointing out that history is threatening to repeat itself and that any attempt of the APC to force itself upon the people of Ondo State will be resisted by the people, the PDP spokesperson reinforced demand by the Oyo State Governor, Seyi Makinde, for the redeployment of the Ondo State Resident Electoral Commissioner, Mrs. Toyin Babalola.
For him, the REC has been hob-nobbing with APC chieftains and showing obvious acts of partisanship.
Also lashing out on Ganduje, Osun State Chapter of the PDP asked the former governor of Kano State to pay serious attention to the political history of the South-West to assist him in making informed lines while making public comments about the region.
Calling on Ganduje to exercise caution in his desperate attempt to impress his party stalwarts, the Chairman of Osun PDP, Sunday Bisi, in a statement, cautioned Ganduje over such reckless utterances capable of igniting citizens’ which, in turn, could destabilse the country, saying Osun people will decide their Governor when the poll is opened for such exercise.
He said for a man who could not salvage his home state for the APC, owing to his disastrous regime as governor of the state, to start threatening fire and brimstone in the South-West, is not only reckless but absolutely off-point.
The PDP Chairman described Ganduje’s postulation as a careless plot to plunge the Southwest into avoidable political turmoil in a country that is already on a stressed line of ethnic distrust and economic challenges.
