By Peter Okutu

The chairman of Ohaukwu Local Government Area of Ebonyi State, Mr Clement Odah, yesterday called on his supporters to resist any attempt that would make them display acts of violence against his opponents in the forthcoming local government election in the State.

Recall that the local government election was scheduled to take place 25th April 2020 in across the 13 LGAs and 171 political wards in the state.

Odah made this known while interacting with newsmen in Abakaliki, capital of Ebonyi State.

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The chairman who is recontesting for a second tenure in the office said, his emergence to power in 2017 was miraculous, and so, nobody should fight or attack any opponent on his behalf as regards the elections.

According to him; “my projects is divine and if you see my campaign poster, it has an inscription “Power belongs to God”. I am not struggling with anybody. The position was given to me by God, using divine agents.

“Secondly, the election we are anticipating to hold coming Saturday is a delegate election. The list of the delegates is already known. The delegates are my friends. They know me and I know them. They trusted and believed in me. I believe in them also. I believe I will have their votes.

“I am absolutely so sure that I will win the election. I have the conviction within me that as God is on my side, the delegates will vote for me.

Odah however, reacted to the purported protest carried out by some persons who are allegedly kicking against his reelection in the forthcoming council polls in the state.

“What you see on social media is not qualified to be a protest. That is not a protest and nobody in Ohaukwu witnessed any open protest in any of our high ways.

“Somebody sent me a link on WhatsApp that people had placards with a number of things. I looked at it, a few disgruntled elements, I doubt whether they are from Ohaukwu.

“They don’t look familiar at all. But wherever they may come from, I believe that they are a paid rented group of disoriented young men who don’t know what they are doing.

“I also know the propagators of such miserable outing. Definitely, a few persons who may not be happy with the chairman may have done that. I enjoy the support of over 98 per cent of the stakeholders of Ohaukwu LGA and that is a fact.

“All the stakeholders and teeming number of youths are with me including the market women and traders. All the traditional rulers, town unions, the clergymen and all other people that matters in Ohaukwu are with me. And so, the insignificant two per cent doesn’t matter to me.

“This insignificant number may have seen how God will grant me victory and became restless to the extent of renting some strange students from neighbouring institutions to carry out a cowardly act of protest.

“They made efforts to see our leader at Umuegbe but they were rebuked and sent back shamelessly. And so, there is no protest to the best of my knowledge”

“No reasonable youths from Ohaukwu will protest against me because I have liberated them. And I assure you, if I run for election twenty times, they will vote for me twenty times because I have touched their lives uniquely,” he stated.

Vanguard