Ahead of the forthcoming governorship election in Kogi State, the State Chapter of the Social Democratic Party has refuted the reports making the rounds that its members have defected enmass to the All Progressives Congress and as well collapsed its structures at all levels into that of the APC in the State.
The party made the denial in a statement on Friday following reports on Thursday of the defection of its members.
Those who decamped and announced the collapse of its structure into that of the APC were reported to have been led by the 21 Local Government and three Zonal Chairman.
In the statement made available to newsmen in Abuja by the Kogi State Publicity Secretary of the SDP, Yahaya Bahawudeen, the party dismissed the reports, describing it as false and fake news.
The spokesman insisted that no single member of the State Executive Council had dumped the party, saying rather, all of them were on the field campaigning for the candidate of the party in the election.
Bahawudeen maintained that the defection story was part of the crude campaign of falsehood aimed at disparaging the SDP and its candidate, Alhaji Murtala Ajaka.
He accused the Kogi State Government of concocting and spreading fake news against the party.
He added: “These are crude fakeries concocted by the desperate renegade in power in Kogi who has engaged in every known act of dishonesty and violence to desecrate the exalted office he occupies.
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“For a governor who Photographs every visitor that as much as set foot in his Abuja Residence (which has been the defacto Kogi Government House in the last eight years) to use for blackmail and information manipulation how come the entire Executives of the SDP met him to decamp and eulogise him an there’s no single pictorial or video record of such a momentous event?
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“No single member of the executive of the SDP in Kogi has decamped or defected to the APC. The name of the Zonal Chairman of Kogi East is Pastor Sunday Atabor; That of Kogi Central is Musa Salawu Odogba while the Zonal Chairman of Kogi West District is Hon Emmanuel Adebayo A.
“All these Zonal Chairmen and the LG Chairmen are not only steadfastly in the party but they are by the grace of God leading the charge to dislodge Bello and his cabinet of gangs of thugs from the governance of our dear state.
“The names Suleiman Isah and Zubairu Ibrahim given as Zonal Chairmen of Kogi East and Central which was contained in Mr Bello’s press statement are fictitious. These are not existing humans beings and we challenge Mr Bello to produce them to contradict us.
“We call on media houses to be circumspect of stories emanating from the stable of this criminally deluded Governor who can no longer tell the difference between reality and fiction.
“We call on the good people of Kogi State to ignore Bello’s desperate falsehoods. Neither his acts of sustained violence of his new found pass time for falsehood will save him and his puppet from a disgraceful defeat come November 11 which is exactly three months from today.”