Guber race: Jonathan, Obasanjo, 24 PDP govs storm Kogi today
BY LEKE ADESERI
LAGOS — Preparations have reached a feverish pitch as Kogi State chapter of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, prepares to receive President Goodluck Jonathan, Vice President Namadi Sambo, former President Olusegun Obasanjo and 24 governors of PDP controlled states, today in Lokoja, for the grand finale of the campaigns of the PDP governorship candidate, Capt Idris Wada and running mate, Yomi Awoniyi, ahead of Saturday’s gubernatorial election.
Today’s grand finale brings to an end 28 rallies that had taken the team round the 24 local councils and three senatorial zones in the state beginning with the flag-off on September 29.
Former Special Assistant to former President Obasanjo, Chief Tunde Olusunle of the Media Committee of the Wada/Awoniyi Campaign Organisation, in a statement in Lokoja, yesterday, said the state government intended “to deploy the event to kill many birds with one stone.”
Goodluck Jonathan and Namadi Sambo
According to him, outgoing Gov. Ibrahim Idris intends to use the President’s visit to showcase some of the projects executed by his administration. These include the multi-billion naira Greater Lokoja Water Scheme, dualised Lokoja-Ganaja Road, ultra-modern Lokoja Confluence Stadium and the new extension of Government House.
However, commenting, Mr Rotimi Obadofin, a member of the Action Congress of Nigeria, ACN/Abubakar Audu Campaign Organisation who spoke on behalf of Audu’s running mate, Chief Henry Ojuola, said the projects listed were an embarrassment to Kogi people as past Nigerian leaders were brought to the state for similar purposes in the past.
ACN reacts
Obadofin, a former ACN governorship aspirant said: “The truth of the matter is that Prince Abubakar Audu initiated the new Lokoja stadium project during his first tenure and would have completed it within one year but for the truncation of his tenure by the military. They (PDP) have been bringing all kinds of leaders to commission the same project; they brought Obasanjo, they brought David Mark, they brought Yar’Adua even when the project was yet to be completed.”
“That is the embarrassment to Kogi people when you keep bringing people to commission projects under construction.”
But while describing the projects as “monumental testimonies to the far sighted vision of the Idris Administration,” Olusunle said the completion of the projects by Idris was “direct indictments” on PDP’s main challenger in the election (the ACN) whose candidate, former Governor Audu, initiated the projects during his tenure.
“Audu initiated the stadium project during his first tenure in 1992. During his fortuitous return to Lugard House between 1999 and 2003, the stadium remained abandoned. It took Idris’ single minded commitment to ensure the completion of the edifice, two decades after’, he said, adding, “The story of the water project is not different. Despite the infinite potentials of rivers Niger and Benue which are naturally conjoined in Lokoja, Audu never envisioned a grand scale palliative to the intractable water problem.
He was content dispensing sundry political patronage awarding contracts for boreholes most of which were dysfunctional before or shortly after commissioning.”
