Sam Philip
The withdrawal of Peoples Democratic Party(PDP) from the Saturday local council election in Ondo State has been condemned by the candidates of the party in the state .
Chairmanship and councillorship candidates of the party for Akure South Local Government on Thursday expressed their disappointment in the decision of the leadership of the party without consulting with the candidates.
Leading the councillorship candidates to NUJ Press Centre, Akure, Tuyi Adekanmbi, the chairmanship candidate of PDP for Akure South Local Government said they decided to let the world know that that they didn’t collect money from anyone to withdraw from the election.
He disclosed that the leadership of the party had a meeting with all aspirants from all the local governments asking them if they could personally sponsor themselves for the election because the party is going through insulvency.
Adekanmbi disclosed that all the aspirants agreed to sponsor themselves and they were subsequently given the go ahead to participate in the election.
He lamented that after spending their money on printing posters, producing jungles and campaigning around, the leadership of the party on Wednesday wrote to ODIEC that the party is withdrawing from the election without carrying the any of the candidates along.
Adekanmbi disclosed that they decided to address newsmen to dispel the rumour that’s current making the rounds that they were bribed to withdraw from the election.
He said: “Having with me here is the composition of the councillorship candidates and the chairmanship candidates from PDP, particularly in Akure South Local Government.
“And we are here to address the press and tell the whole world our grievances against the party. We are loyal to the party from the inception. And I’m bold to say that all of us here, we have been bona fide members of this party for over 25 years. Through thick and thin, we have been loyal to the party, all their interests, and everything that has to do with them is all that we follow.
“To be precise, seven, six months back, we were called upon that a local government election would be coming up, that the state has equally shown interest in conducting a local government election, in which the party called the interested candidates to signify for attention, in which we did.
“We bought a form, we did everything, all the procedure necessary is what we did. We got all our tax payers receipt from Internal Revenue, we paid for everything. And shortly, the ODIEC came up and said, the election has been postponed. The election has been postponed four times until we are here.
“Early last month, the party called us after we lost election to the present administration and they told us that the election coming up by 18th of this month, that the party won’t be interested because they don’t have money.
“And we told them, we are aspirants, we believe we can run this party, that it is indeed our responsibility to partake in this election. And the party told us that, if we wanted to partake in this election, are we capable of doing it, in which all the aspirants said we are capable.
“The state chairman, in person of Hon. Bakita Bello, gave us the go ahead to go on with the election.
“Truly, it is not all of us that is capable of running election without the support of the party, be it from state level or federal level. We started, we have posters, we placed our posters, we had several meetings, we met with our people, we canvass, we do jingles, posters, t-shirts, caps, everything, just to ensure that we sensitize the people so as to gain the mind of the entire populace to cast their vote for us under our party PDP.
“There was an insinuation around, for almost four or five days, that the party said they are going to boycott the election. And we said we had the confidence from what we had from the party chairman, that this election, we should go ahead as long as we are ready to do the election and meet up with everything necessary by the party to ensure that that election takes to place.
“Lo and behold, yesterday night, when we were all on top of it in our different wards and in the center of Akure, moving around the metropolis campaigning for people that were having election in less than 72 hours, only for the party to come up and write a letter to ODIEC that the PDP is boycotting that election.
“This is an action that they took without the consent of us that are contesting. As candidates, we consider this to be an infringement of our rights. We deserve the right to contest and we paid all the funds. The party was aware, they screened our forms, they have been to ODIEC, everything we have done, they gave us the go ahead to paste our poster, to do banner, to do everything and to canvass and go ahead and spend money on the election.
“Everybody will agree with me, you don’t go to election without money, no matter how small, being a councillor, you know how much money it’s going to take to canvass people to vote for you.
“So as a result of that, for them now to come up in less than 72 hours to the election and without the consent of the candidates and they said PDP is going to boycott that election. We see this to be an infringement of rights and if they are going to do it, it shouldn’t be done to a loyal party members like us.”
