The Director General of Media and Publicity to the Governor of Kogi State, Kingsley Fanwo has said the decision of the PDP to boycott poll in the State Assembly Election in Mopamuro Constituency is “meaningless”, saying , the PDP only used the decision to save itself from the “inevitable defeat that would have come their way”.
The Governor’s spokesperson stated this while briefing newsmen at his Oke Ako Polling Unit 004 in Takete Ide/Otafun Ward of the Local Government Area.
According to him, “PDP was doomed to lose the election heavily”.
“A number of factors informed their purported boycott which was not wholly complied with by their party members. One, they have seen the Tsunami that swept the entire State in the House of Assembly election which saw the APC winning all the declared constituencies. There was no way Mopamuro would have fallen into the opposition.
“Two, all the leaders of the party and members of the APC were fired up by the inexplicable defeat suffered on February 23. We were poised to right the political wrongs of the National Assembly Poll. We campaigned hard and decimated the campaigns of calumny of the PDP.
“What is the use of their so called partial boycott when we had our members outnumbering them at the Polling Units anyway? The voting strength of my Polling Unit is about 300 votes if all parties participated. Today, they stayed away and over 240 members of our party came out to exercise their franchise. It would have been heavy pounding if they had come out to vote”.
Fanwo said the polls across the State were largely peaceful, condemning the few cases of violence recorded in some areas.
“It will be too early to blame any political party for the handful of violence recorded in some parts of the State. We are confident that security agencies will investigate the issues and bring perpetrators to justice”, he said.
On the allegation that the ADC to the Governor invaded the NUJ Secretariat in the State to threaten journalists, Fanwo said “it was false and laughable”.
In his words, “Mr Shugaba is one of the finest Officers in the Nigerian Police and wouldn’t have done such. I have related closely with him and I have no doubt that he respects journalists and their rights.
“He understands the tremendous respect his boss has for journalists and wouldn’t have acted in a way contrary to his professional training as a top brass in the Police Force”.
He urged the newly elected Assembly members to work with the Governor to move the State forward.
