THE Peoples Democratic Party has said it will not congratulate Governor Rotimi Akeredolu of Ondo state on his victory at Saturday’s governorship poll, until the determination of the manner of his emergence as APC candidate by the court.
The party said it was ludicrous and completely absurd that the APC National Caretaker Committee Chairman, Governor Mai Mala Buni was begging for endorsement of the election in spite of his awareness that the internal mechanism that produced his party’s candidate, as presided over by him, was faulty.
Akeredolu was declared winner of the October 10, 2020 Governorship Election, with a total of 292,830 votes, against the candidate of the PDP, Eyitayo Jegede, who polled 195,791 votes in total.
The PDP National Publicity Secretary, Kola Ologbondiyan, who addressed journalists at the party’s national secretariat in Abuja, said, “The attention of the Peoples Democratic Party has been drawn to a press conference by the chairman of the National Caretaker Committee of the All Progressives Congress, APC, Governor Mai Mala Buni, wherein he begged the PDP to congratulate the APC over the outcome of the October 10, Ondo governorship election.
“It is indeed ludicrous and completely absurd that Governor Buni is begging for endorsement of the election in spite of his awareness that the internal mechanism that produced his party’s candidate, as presided over by him, was faulty.
“Nigerians already know that the emergence of Governor Mai Buni in the national leadership of his party is a subject of litigation and as such, his nomination of any candidate for the election is seen, even among his party members, as a nullity until the court says otherwise.
“It will therefore be pathetic for Governor Mai Buni to attempt to use the PDP to build something on the nothingness of his position in his party. The PDP is too structured as a party to be used by anybody, under any guise, in that regard.”
The party also alleged that a huge amount of money was diverted from the nation’s oil resources to execute the election.
Ologbondiyan said, “Perhaps, Governor Buni is not aware that information available in the public space and to the PDP, showed that a very top-level management official of the NNPC, through a North-West governor elected on the platform of the APC, diverted huge amounts of money, in dollars, from our nation oil resources to fund vote-buying in the Ondo election.
“Instead of begging the PDP for the congratulatory message, Governor Buni should rather speak to this disturbing stealing of oil money to fund his party’s vote-buying at the expense of Nigerians who are bearing the brunt of the increase in the pump price of fuel and corruption in the oil sector under the APC.
“While our party will, in due course, make its official position on the outcome of the Ondo election known, the PDP urges President Muhammadu Buhari to take steps that will accelerate the amendment of the electoral act, which was stalled following his failure to sign the amended Act of the National Assembly in 2019.”
