As the 2023 Gubernatorial and House of Assembly elections draw nearer, the gubernatorial candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Kwara State, Alh. Shuaibu Yaman Abdullahi has called on the security agencies and the electorate to be more conscious as the ruling party, the All Progressive Party (APC), may be orchestrating violence across the state.
The Special Adviser, Media and Strategy to the PDP Gubernatorial Candidate, Kwara State, Abdulwahab Oba in a press release made available to Daily Links, said that the warning becomes necessary as the APC already attempted to test-run its violence masterplan in Shonga Emirate on Monday when it imported some suspected hoodlums from the neighbouring Niger State under the guise of organising political rallies and door-to-door campaign in the Emirate.
The release stated that the suspected hoodlums who were initially thought to be theatre art practitioners were seen openly carrying arms while singing war songs to frighten the people and warn them of possible violence during the elections.
“Sources close to the gubernatorial candidate reveal that the so-called theatre art practitioners may have been brought to acclimatise with the community as a prelude to disrupting the elections in areas suspected to be strongholds of Alh Shuaibu Yaman who hails from Shonga.
“It is, therefore, not impossible that Governor AbdulRahman, fairing defeat as a result of the recent gale of defection from his party and unanimity of various political forces in the state to vote for Alh Yaman, may be planning violence across the state, especially in areas where it is obvious that he may lose the election. AbdulRahman may have brought hoodlums into the state to disrupt the elections”, the release said.
While praising various security agencies for being highly professional in the previous elections, Alh Yaman advised the electorate to stay behind after voting and counting to ensure that results are electrically transmitted. The gubernatorial candidate also admonished party agents to collect satisfied copies of the result before leaving the polling units.
“More than any before it, this election is about the youths whose future has already been mortgaged as a result of an unprecedented but unnecessary debt burden of over N61b in less than four wasted years of profligacy. If just a part of the over N50b unaccounted fund of the state by Gov AbdulRazaq is used as a bursary for students, most of them would not be out of school and would have lived a more decent life.
“Never in the history of the state has any government engaged in a reckless wastage of the meagre resources of the state to buy people’s conscience and consciousness like what AbdulRahman is shamelessly doing, even while owing arrears of salaries, pensions and gratuities to workers and pensioners.
“For the avoidance of doubt, the PDP remains committed to free, fair and credible elections but resolute in resisting, within the precinct of legitimacy, any manipulation of the process as being planned by the APC in sync with some underhand stakeholders”, the release added.
