People of Ibaji Local Government of Kogi voted the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the just concluded Presidential/National Assembly and the Governorship/State Assembly elections because the party cared for them.
Mr Fidel Egwuche, former Special Adviser (Political) to erstwhile governor Ibrahim Idris and community leader of Ibaji disclosed this in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Wednesday in Lokoja.
Egwuche said that the party had over the years shown love and care for the Ibaji people performing creditably well in areas where previous administrations in the state had failed.
He said that the major challenge of the people was roads and successive governments failed to address the issue to the extent that a former governor once queried why they demanded an ambulance knowing they had no roads for it to ply.
Egwuche noted that the PDP under governor Ibrahim Idris however defied the dreaded terrain and constructed a 30-kilometer road from Idah into Ibaji and built three cottage hospitals with resident doctors aside other school projects.
Governor Idris Wada, also of the PDP Connected Onyedega, headquarters of Ibaji Local Government to the national grid and the area now had electricity, he added.
Egwuche, a former correspondent of NAN in Benue and Niger States and former Permanent Secretary, Land and Survey as well as the first Sole Administrator of Ibaji LG said “We voted PDP because PDP recognized our people. Ibaji has no choice than to vote PDP.
In 1976, Col. Ibrahim Taiwo, the governor of old Kwara State was in Idah but could not touch any Ibaji town because there was no road and in 1978, Abdullahi Shelleng, Governor of old Benue state went up to Aya but could go no further but PDP changed that”, he said.
Talking about the political change sweeping through the country, Egwuche said: “The change you look for is the change that will better your life. We don’t change for changing sake. Change is not sacrosanct.
“Any government that gives us road, we will vote for that party 20 times over”, he said adding that credible candidates be voted into power as most political parties in the country lacked ideology.
(NAN)
