Femi Folaranmi, Yenagoa
The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has expressed fears that the 2019 polls might be rigged in favour of the ruling All Progressive Congress (APC).
National Chairman of the party, Prince Uche Secondus who stated this in Yenagoa, Bayelsa State capital, shortly after receiving some defectors from the APC.
Secondus said that the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) is behaving like a parastatal of the APC to rig election.
He, however, warned that in 2019, the people should allow their votes to count to ensure that country is free from the grips of the APC.
Said he, “Our fear is that will INEC play the game regarding the provision of the Constitution?
Will they not rig elections. Our fear is that they are getting ready because they are parastatal of APC to rig election. But in 2019, nobody can rig election. Come to the people and reconnect. Our votes will count in the next election. It is time to take out this evil, this evil party called APC.
They have visited vengeance on this nation. From the North, South, West and East. As Dickson restored Bayelsa, the country will experience happiness and joy.”
Secondus, who also announced waiver for all returnees to contest elections in the party, warned state chapters not to bar anybody from joining the party as the party is poised to welcome “very prominent stakeholders of our nation to come over to the party that would rescue our nation from this challenge of difficulties, hunger, killings, poverty.”
Governor Seriake Dickson, in his address, declared that the APC had been weakened and that it could not win any elections, adding that Bayelsans should not allow themselves to be deceived by a party that has not been able to deliver anything to Bayelsans.
In the words of Governor Dickson, “Just a word for the other side, for those deceiving people with newspapers articles, who are not on ground.
“Let me call on you to play according to the rules. If you are truly on ground and willingly to test your popularity in all elections, mobilise your people and sell what your Federal Government has done for our people.
“Tell our people in your communities what the Federal Government has brought to them. Because what we have put on ground is in every community, is in every local government for people to see. The young people of this state should not allow themselves to be deceived and misled”
Meanwhile the Chairman of the APC in the state, Mr. Joseph Fafi, has described as “grand deception” the defectors of some members of the APC to the PDP.
Fafi, in a swift reaction to the news of defection of some APC members, said the party was more convinced it would win the next round of elections in the state because “despite the many months of hard work travelling from LGA to LGA wasting tax payers money and promises of gold and silver they were not able to convince a single stakeholder to dump the APC.”