From Fred Itua, Abuja
Barely one week to the conduct of the rescheduled election, the Senator representing Edo Central, Clifford Ordia has warned against rigging or manipulation of the polls by the All Progressives Congress (APC).
Ordia who spoke to newsmen in Abuja yesterday, said his party, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) was fully prepared to win the election, adding that no amount of intimidation will distract members of the party.
The Senator who is the Deputy Chairman of the Senate committee on Works, said the maladministration of APC-led government in the state in the last eight years has given Edo people no choice, than to choose a more credible candidate from the PDP.
“In my Senatorial District, APC has no chance. We have put everything in place to checkmate plans by APC to rig. We will resist it. We know that the APC is desperate and they are doing everything to frustrate voters, but it will not work.
“The APC knew they were going to lose the election and they decided to shift the election. Even if they want to shift it by another one year, PDP will still win. APC has no chance in Edo State. Edo is a PDP state and we will prove that during the election,” Senator Ordia noted.
He also called on Edo people to come out enmasse and vote for Pastor Osagie Ize-Iyamu, noting that no amount of intimidation should deter them from exercising their voting right.
The Senator also warned security agencies and the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) not to make themselves willing tools in the hands of desperate politicians.
He said: “I want to also call on INEC and security agencies. They must maintain neutrality during the election. They should not allow themselves to be used. They must ensure that voters are not harassed or beaten up.
“I want to equally caution security agencies not to be used too to snatch ballot boxes. I am making this call because we have seen or heard cases in the past where security agencies reportedly connived with INEC officials to deny Nigerians their voting rights.
“I want to urge President Buhari not to allow Oshiomhole’s personal greed to throw Edo State into chaos. Mr. President must caution INEC not be used to rig the election in favour of APC.
“The values of one man, one vote which brought Oshiomhole to power has been abandoned. He is now desperate to impose his candidate on Edo people and we have rejected that. Edo people have rejected Oshiomhole and his candidate.”
I turned down opportunity to be governor in 2007-Ize-Iyamu
The candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Pastor Osagie Ize-Iyamu, has reaveled how he turned down an opportunity to become governor in 2007 because he was convinced that it was wrong to succeed a fellow Bini man.
According to him, his belief in fairness made him to support an Afemai man in the person of Governor Adams Oshiomhole to become governor.
Ize-Iyamu stated this in Iyora-Uzaire, Governor Oshiomhole’s ward in Etsako West local government area, where he received defectors from the All Progressives Congress (APC) led by Prince Musa Braimah.
“I could have been governor in 2007 but I said a Bini man has been governor for eight years. I said a Bini man cannot become governor again.
I now said that Edo North, Afemai, has never produced governor before.
“I said we must look for someone in Afemai to become governor.
We now founded our group and finished everything when they brought Oshiomhole. They said we must help him. So I asked Oshiomhole if he wanted to become governor and he said yes, but that he didn’t know anybody since he came from Kaduna and Abuja.
“The election was so tough that three people died. When he became governor, we realised that he had a different thing in mind. People were angry and came to tell me that we have sold a ‘bad market’ to them.
want to truncate Edo North’s two term and said that God will touch his heart in the second term.
To be sure that I was with him, he made me the director general of his campaign. The moment he won, he said “this Pastor who has been doing anyhow, I must drive him away. That was how he started to fight me.
The leader of the defectors, Prince Musa Braimah, said with the coming of his group into the PDP, the fortunes of the party in the area, which he said was hitherto poor, would now change.
He lamented that roads constructed in the area by Governor Oshiomhole have not translated into development for the people, saying, “the youths don’t have job, the women are still in the same place they were before now and there are no jobs to empower the people.