“We have read and heard the comments of some of the defeated candidates and their parties so far on the just concluded election, but as the Igbo adage goes, ‘you cannot beat a child and deny him the right to cry’. Yes you can cry for the beating or thrashing just like we African people were crying during the colonial rule in Africa and our experienced fathers kept telling us ‘weep not child’.”
With these words at the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) secretariat in Asaba, Delta State, the state Chairman of the party, Chief Peter Nwaoboshi, lambasted losers of the just concluded Delta Central Senatorial District bye-election of last Saturday in the state.
This came barely 24 hours after four Civil Society Organizations, including the Centre for Strategy Ethics and Value, Justice and Equity and the African Initiative for Sustainable and Positive Development, condemned the protest orchestrated against the election by the losers and told them to stop being confrontational.
Nwaoboshi specifically took O’tega Emerhor of the All Progressive Congress, who polled 29,075 votes, and Ede Definone of the Democratic Peoples Party, who scored 29,055 votes, to the cleaners for picking holes in the results declared by the Independent National Electoral Commission, proclaimingHon. Emmanuel Aguariavwodo of the PDP as winner with 263,024.
Both Emerhor and Dafinone had maintained that the results did not reflect the true picture of what transpired during the election but a mere allocation of votes to the respective candidates.
They insisted that the election was not in substantial compliance with the provisions of the Electoral Act and the 1999 Constitution as amended and called for its cancelation.
But the PDP chairman said the party’s first reaction was to ignore their unguarded comments as that of “weeping children” but became necessary to set the records straight when APC’s O’tega Emerhor alleged that the environment was militarized and voters were intimidated.
He said the matter became more damaging when he took the law into his hand by insulting the Deputy Governor of the state, Prof. Amos Agbe Utuama (SAN), shortly after he acknowledged that Delta Central Senatorial District was PDP’s stronghold.
Nwaoboshi said: “I want to thank Emerhor for acknowledging that PDP has strongholds in Delta Central, but at the same time advice him to learn to respect his elders.
“To insult the deputy governor of the state, who is his elder and senior in everything in life, is the height of irresponsibility.
“All good and well meaning Nigerian should condemn this irresponsible, barbaric, outdated and childish action of Emerhor.”
Nwaoboshi said since the APC’s flag-bearer has decided to play it dirty, “PDP will not spare him because Nigeria belongs to us all.”
While he further advised Emerhor to stop heating up the political system, he urged him to seek redress in court if he has the gut.
He said: “The law is clear: nobody can annul an election once concluded except the courts.
“He should channel all his grievances to the court or tribunal, which will soon be set up, and we shall meet him and his party there squarely.
“To my brother, Ede Dafinone, we will advice him to take a clue from his father who never took the Urhobos throughout his illustrious political life to the opposition.”
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