Edo 2024: Ganduje inaugurates campaign council, vows to reclaim state for APC

The National Chairperson of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Umar Ganduje on Saturday inaugurated the national campaign council of the party for the 2024 governorship election in Edo State.

Inaugurating the council headed by Governor Bassey Ottu of Cross River State, Mr Ganduje charged the members to ensure the party reclaimed the state from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) during the 21 September election.

Mr Ganduje, who was excited with the official defection of the Deputy Governor of Edo, Philip Shaibu to the APC, said the party had secured up to 50 per cent of the people in the state’s government.

He urged the campaign council to swing into action to ensure that all members at the local government areas and unit levels come out to campaign and vote.

“A flag-off rally will soon be organised so that the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, will be in Benin City.

“We are so happy because our incoming governor and his deputy have already produced a blueprint for the development of Edo State; they are not full with MoUs.

“They are coming with a blueprint and practical steps so that Edo can fully develop and be connected to the centre,” he said.

The former governor of Kano State said that if the state was not connected to the centre, it would not experience full political participation and dividends of democracy.

According to him, the only way to achieve this is by voting for Monday Okpebholo and his running mate, Dennis Idahosa, who are flying the party’s flag in the election.

Mr Ganduje commended the Oba of Benin for maintaining peace and tranquillity in the state, assuring that the “incoming APC government” would appreciate and respect the traditional council under the Oba of Benin.

APC candidate attacks Obaseki

In his remark, Mr Okpebholo said Edo had never been as divided as it was currently.

The APC candidate castigated Governor Godwin Obaseki for raising the state debt profile from about N43 billion when he took over in 2016 to over ₦500 billion.

“We are here to change it; we are coming to restore infrastructure, to restore education and to restore security to the state.

“We are bringing practical governance into the state,” he said.

The State Chairperson of the APC, Jarret Tenebe, urged the national chairperson of the party to join them to rescue the state from the grip of the PDP.

What Oshiomhole said at the rally

Earlier, the senator representing Edo North and former governor of the state, Adams Oshiomhole, said the gathering represented the very essence of the broom, a reunion of the people who were deceived in their former party.

Mr Oshiomhole said Mr Okpebholo if elected, had a huge task ahead of him as governor of Edo.

He urged the people of the state to compare the years of the rule of the APC and the PDP in the state and see the difference.

“Edo people have the chance to sit back and ask themselves the differences between the years the APC ruled the state and the years the PDP ruled.

“Governance is about having human empathy. Those who do not know your house cannot fix the leakages; only those who know the leakages can help fix them.

“If they can cheat themselves and go to court, we will not allow them to cheat (at the polls). It will be one-man-one-vote,” he said.

Commenting on the killing of a police inspector, Onu Akon, who was the security aide of Mr Okpebholo, Mr Oshiomhole vowed to ensure that the national assembly investigates the death and that the investigation would not be “messed up”.

He, however, called on the inspector-general of police to disband the State Security Network, which he said had become a tool for oppression in the hand of the state government.

Mr Oshiomhole also called on the Commissioner of Police in Edo, Funsho Adegboye, “to defend the integrity of his uniform” by apprehending the perpetrators of the act and bring them to book.

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According to him, “The days of oppression are over. They shall know no peace because they have murdered sleep,” he said.

In his remarks, the Chairperson of the campaign council, Governor Ottu, promised to deliver the state for the APC come 21 September.

(NAN)