Ben Peters, Abuja
Ahead of the September 2 scheduled LG poll, one of the leading APC chieftains in Edo State has told the party faithful not to despair or fret about a possible defeat, insisting the party is blessed to have a President who is also the leader of the party that is interested in winning.
Gen. Charles Airhiavbere (retd) is the Executive Director of Finance in the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC), the interventionist Agency established by the federal government to speed up the development of the oil-bearing Niger Delta area.
Gen. Airhiavbere (retd) offered what seems a ray of hope to the APC supporters during a stakeholder meeting with the leaders of the Edo South APC which he hosted.
The Army general who retired as the Director of Army Finance is one of the leading APC guber aspirants in the Edo 2020 State governorship election
He made the morale-lifting statement in Benin while responding to the barrage of questions from reporters at the venue of the meeting.
Asked if the APC is still as intact and potent as to be able to give the ruling party a run for its money given that LG election results are known to be written before the election proper.
Gen. Airhiavbere said such electoral malfeasances can no longer take place because we are in a new regime where the sitting President is a thoroughbred democrat who is interested in winning elections for his party.
Appraising the outcome of the stakeholder’s meeting which he convened to assess the state of the party as well as build consensus with some of the aggrieved members of the party, Gen. Airhiavbere said he was pleased with the level of preparedness ahead of the LG poll.
He also assured that the APC is ready to spring a surprise by showing that it is the dominant political party in the state despite all the noise being made by the PDP and the Labour Party.
On allegations that the APC was afraid of defeat and had resorted to self-help ahead of the LG poll by setting aside a whopping sum of N150m surreptitiously procured from the NDDC, with him serving as the conduit pipe, to be used for vote buying.
Gen. Airhiavbere said those peddling such rumours lacked the evidence and, therefore, challenged any one of them with evidence to step forward and place it in the public domain.
He insisted that with each passing day, the PDP was getting jittery about the prospect of losing the election and seeing its so-called claim of being the ruling party demystified.
Gen. Airhiavbere added the APC in Edo State is stronger and more united than ever before, adding the LG poll will serve as a test-run to the eventual victory of the party in the 2024 governorship election.