The All Progressives Congress (APC) in Ekiti State has decried the statement credited to Vice President Namadi Sambo in which he described Ekiti and Osun States as war fronts, saying such statement was not only ill-timed but also unfortunate to have been made by the Number 2 citizen at this period when the whole nation is trying to quell the Boko Haram fire burning in some parts of Nigeria.
In a statement signed by the Director of Publicity and Media of the party in Ekiti State, Segun Dipe, APC described the statement as a desperate and an unguarded one. “It is as an irony that while the PDP-led Federal Government had not been able to find an answer the deadly and seemingly intractable Boko Haram insurgency, Vice President Namadi Sambo is planning to convert the peaceful Ekiti State into a war front and boasting to capture the peace-loving people of the State who are currently enjoying dividends of democracy being served them by APC through their chosen Governor, Dr. John Kayode Fayemi.
“PDP can only be at war with itself and not with the people of Ekiti State. We have a tested and trusted governor in government and we will not allow PDP to decimate or desecrate our state,” the statement reads.
APC also expressed grave concern at the unwholesome conduct of the Minister of State for Defence, Senator Musiliu Obanikoro, during the Ondo State by-election incident, where he was unequivocally indicted by the Resident Electoral Commissioner in Ondo as having his hands soiled, describing such display of naked power by the minister as an abuse of a position he was holding in trust for the entire people of Nigeria.
Warning Senator Obanikoro to keep off Ekiti, most especially during the Governorship election of June 21, 2014, APC said that he (Obanikoro) has no business in Ekiti State and he should not attempt to militarise Ekiti State the way he did Ondo during the recent by-election.
We observe that the PDP is fond of declaring war on Ekiti each time an election approaches and the people of the state always conquer the party’s insurgence. In 2007, then President Olusegun Obasanjo said the election would be “do or die”. Another PDP chieftain and a former Speaker of the House of Representatives made a similar boast in 2009 in the run-up to the rerun election, but in all of it, we are more than conqueror.
We are now using this medium to put the PDP and every of its co-conspirator against the well-being of Ekiti people in the presidency on notice that the collective will and resolve of Ekiti people, just as always, will resist whatever war they have declared on Ekiti people as usual.
Both the boast that the PDP would reclaim Ekiti and Osun and the plan to capture the states at devil’s cost, using the federal might, are not in consonance with the facts on ground. Such hopes are being built on a wrong premise, for Ekiti had always been in the progressive fold except for the unfortunate incidence in 2003 when the will of the people was subverted and the mandate of the people was stolen by the PDP.
We all saw the result of the electoral heist. It plunged Ekiti State into political instability and retrogression that saw the Land of Honour labouring under the incompetent grip of seven PDP governors for seven years.
“In 2007, the people of Ekiti stood up to the PDP and didn’t despair until they sent the PDP packing. It is sheer reverie for anyone to think PDP would rule Ekiti again after the people have seen the difference between good governance as typified by Dr. Fayemi and bad governance which the PDP represents. Ekiti was never a PDP state. They were impostors and just like every impostor, they were eventually sent packing in 2010.”