Afric-tv24 - Zamfara..
AfricCon Report - Tuesday Top Stories
AfricCon Report - Tuesday Top Stories
BARRISTER Vincent Ose Akhere is the Edo State Youth leader of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). A former Commissioner for Arts and Culture during the Comrade Adams Oshiomhole’s first term, Akhere who hails from Uromi in Esan North East Local government
of the state in this interview comments on issues pertaining to the pending election in the local government saying the actions of the ruling Action Congress of Nigeria, ACN are detaching the party from the grassroots. Excerpts:
There are speculations that the cancelled Esan North East election will be conducted in the month of August. How prepared is your party?
We are fully prepared to face ACN in Esan North East any time, any day; if that election holds now I am one hundred per cent sure that we will floor ACN.
But the ACN, candidate Mr. Samuel Oboh says the ACN will defeat PDP in that election and that there is nothing like meaningful development in Esan North East by the administration of John Yakubu when he was the chairman of the council?
I will describe his comment as the ranting of an ant. Sam Oboh is a product of imposition; in fact he is a political liability to ACN as a political party in Esan North East. The people of Uromi rejected him the day he was nominated as the ACN candidate and they demonstrated that during the cancelled election by voting overwhelming for the Peoples Democratic Party against him. If you go to Uromi now, the market women are clamouring for Yakubu, the mad men and women are clamouring for Yakubu, even the blind, disabled are campaigning for Yakubu, because of what he did in his first tenure in office.
So I am very sure that if the election holds tomorrow, Oboh will be floored by Yakubu. Yakubu remains the candidate to beat in that election and in fact Yakubu is our chairman in waiting. Uromi people have resolved to ensure that Yakubu is installed as the next executive chairman of Esan North East, come rain or sunshine. Even if they give then all the money in the world, they will vote in Yakubu because they want to ensure that he goes back there to continue from where he stopped before he was booted out by the evil government of ACN in Edo State.
The initial election was said to have been cancelled due to violence, is it true?
I will say that election was the freest and fairest election ever conducted in this part of the world in recent times. There was no case of thuggery; it was devoid of rancorous experiences.
We did not have any problem, the Commissioner of Police was on ground; I was with him at ward 5. The Director of SSS was there, they stayed two nights at Uromi and they even tried in vain to persuade the chairman to announce that result. God Almighty knows the truth. That election was free and fair and the PDP won also because of the very unpopular candidate imposed on the people by the ACN-led government in Edo State.
Do you have faith in the same EDSIEC to conduct the rescheduled election?
We have since lost confidence in EDSIEC, they are there to do the bidding of the state governor because he appointed them. He is the appointer so they believe that their job will be at stake, in jeopardy if they do not do what the Government House wants them to do. We have no confidence and we do not believe they will do a good job this time around.
And I want to say this: if the result is not announced at Uromi as instituted in the electoral law, we shall reject it, and we will even stop the election until they are ready to declare the results at the polling booths as required by the law.
