…Take the rice, but vote your for your conscience, says PDP
In a desperate bid to swing victory in favour of his All Progressives
Congress (APC) candidate in the September 28 governorship election in Edo
State, Governor Adams Oshiomhole is said to have piled pressure on
Africa’s richest man and biggest rice merchant in Nigeria, Alhaji Aliko
Dangote, to make available bags of rice as well as cash with which to
“buy” votes from the electorate.
The APC candidate, Mr Godwin Obaseki, has business links with Alhaji
Dangote and has been instrumental to Dangote’s friendship with Oshiomhole
as well as to plans by Dangote to invest in the State.
Sources close to the development said that Dangote had reluctantly
succumbed to Oshiomhole’s substantial pressure and would, in the next few
days, donate to the APC tens of thousands bags of rice, which would be
distributed to bribe Edo electorate ahead of the election.
The opposition Peoples Democratic Pay (PDP) in Edo said it was not worried
that the development could undermine the integrity of the electoral
process and set the State on a retrogressive course because it believes
the people now know better.
PDP’s Publicity Secretary, Mr Chris Nehikhare, when contacted, said “if
the feelers are true, then we owe it a duty to counsel Edo people not to
sell their birthright for a mess of porridge. We encourage them to
collect the rice from APC but vote for their conscience.
“Thousands of Edo electorate who had already seen the light in the SIMPLE
agenda of the PDP candidate, Pastor Osagie Ize-Iyamu, should remain
focused on the promises and prospects of a greater and glorious Edo State,
which Ize-Iyamu represents and exemplifies.
“They should collect the rice because there is hunger in the land, which
was caused by the directionless leadership of the APC-led Federal
Government that has plunged the nation into avoidable economic recession,
and go ahead to use their vote to punish the APC by rejecting it at the
poll.”
Reports have it that a 50 kilogramme bag of rice, which is the commonest
staple food in Nigeria, has gone out of the reach of the ordinary man,
with the price rising from about N8,000 to about N22,000 since the APC
administration of President Muhammadu Buhari took over power.
Meanwhile, sources said that Dangote had expressed reservation about
investing more money as requested by Oshiomhole into the Edo APC
governorship project.
Dangote was said to have told Oshiomhole that intelligence reports at his
disposal indicated that the PDP is by far the favourite party among the
Edo electorate.
But Oshiomhole, according to credible information, pleaded with Dangote to
avail the APC and its candidate of his critical contribution as it would
go a long way in helping to redirect the minds of the “hungry” people to
vote for Obaseki.
The business mogul was said to have shifted ground after placing it on
record that Oshiomhole is the problem with the APC and its governorship
candidate in the State.
It was learnt that Oshiomhole disagreed with the suggestion that he is the
problem, explaining that the problem is the transferred anger and
aggression by the people due to the inability of the Federal Government to
arrest the growing hunger in the country.
He was said to have assured Dangote that he knows how to “get” Edo voters
as he has set a machinery in motion to make sure that the APC wins.