PDP hired crowds from seven states to hold rally in Kogi: APC

The All Progressive Congress (APC) Campaign Council in Kogi (KOSACC) has accused the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) of hiring supporters from seven states for its campaign rally held on Saturday in Kogi

Kingsley Fanwo, the director of media and publicity of KOSACC, made the allegation at a news conference on Monday in Lokoja.

Mr Fanwo said the PDP was dismayed by the poor turnout at the rally and claimed that PDP resorted to theatrics of rolling out expired individuals who had been expunged from the ranks of the APC and characters as defectors and proceeded to canonise them.

”The rally turned into a farce when people like the former deputy governor of the state, Elder Simeon Achuba and the former speaker of the state assembly, Rt Hon. Alfa Imam, were repackaged for Atiku as Kogi APC stalwarts who were decamping to the PDP at the rally,” he claimed. “What Atiku and his entourage might not have known is that this is the same Achuba who was impeached from office by the state assembly for gross misconduct during the first term of the administration.”

Mr Fanwo added, ”Also, Rt Hon. Alfa Imam is another has-been, who has a running battle with his colleagues when he was Speaker of the State House of Assembly. At the cusp of being impeached, he pleaded to be allowed to resign.”

He stressed that the PDP campaign rally in Kogi was a shadow of itself, saying the umbrella circus did not need anyone to tell them that Kogi people have rejected them.

”We know that PDP brought a lot of people from seven neighbouring states for the campaign rally in Kogi. Talking about 148,000 defectors at Kogi rally by PDP is too ridiculous and not true,” Mr Fanwo stressed.

The Kogi information commissioner Fanwo described PDP presidential candidate Atiku Abubakar’s pledge to revive the Ajaokuta Steel Company as “morbid joke” because President Muhammadu Buhari “has taken a bold step on the gigantic project and we trust the president-in-waiting, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu to see the process through.”

However, the PDP Presidential Campaign Council (PCC)’s spokesman Austin Ochum described APC’s claims as the noise of a drowning party.

“The insinuation that we hired people from seven states is to ver strange and laughable because we have never for once engaged in such a merchandise,” stated Mr Ochu. “By that press conference, APC is definitely threatened and jittery that the game is over for them as the people spoke last Saturday that they desperately want change. And the time for that change is now.”

(NAN)