By Miftaudeen Raji

The main opposition People’s Democratic Party, PDP has said winning an election, in a state like Ekiti, is way beyond organizing a “Mega Rally” and fanfare.

Lere Olayinka, the Spokesperson and Director of Media and Publicity of Bisi Kolawole Campaign Organization, PDP flag bearer in the Saturday, June 18th governorship election, who asserted in an exclusive interview with Vanguard correspondent on Wednesday, stated that 20 – 30 per cent of the people that attended the APC rally was from Lagos.

This came barely 24 hours after the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC presidential candidate, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu described the PDP as “Poverty Development Party,” at Mega Rally for its governorship flag bearer, Biodun Oyebanji, which held on Tuesday ahead of the Saturday’s Ekiti governorship election.

Olayinka, who stated that the Kolawole camp was not bothered about ‘Mega Rally’ noted that the PDP has adopted a dynamic approach towards political campaigns, as well as addressing the real issues affecting the people and development of Ekiti State.

He said, “Rally and all that Mega Rally, to us, doesn’t win elections. The PDP would rather intensify efforts at reaching out to people, talking to voters in their houses, in their locality and places of residence.

“What APC ended up doing yesterday was to bring a lot of people from Lagos. While coming back from my home town yesterday, I saw a lot of people going back to Lagos. 23-30 per cent of the people from that rally were from Lagos.

The spokesperson said the ruling party was only addressing existing members of the party, who are already convinced they will vote, while they (at PDP) were reaching out to the people in their houses, who are not members of the PDP. 

He, however, appealed to the APC to allow the people of Ekiti to choose who will become their next governor in the forthcoming Ekiti governorship election in a violent-free environment.

“Enough of bloodshed, enough of violence. Let people be able to make a choice, and let this bragging be the one in government in Abuja and Ekiti, so we cannot lose election bragging stop. Let them bring their mind to the reality that power belongs to the people,’ he said.

Olayinka, however, noted that Kolawole is the most qualified among governorship candidates in the Ekiti governorship race in terms of experience.

“He is the only one who has been a local government supervisor. He has functioned in governance at the grassroots level. He is the only one who has been a member of the state assembly.

“He is also the only one who has been a commissioner in the state and Chairman of a political party, the Chairman of PDP. He has been a member of BOT of a political party and a member of governing council at the Federal Polytechnic, Bida.  He has legislative and administrative experience and is well equipped,” he said.

Olayinka, who noted that 80 per cent of the infrastructure of Ekiti state was facilitated by the PDP government, said if the Ekiti election were to be conducted on a free and fair, one-man-one-vote basis, PDP would emerge victorious on Saturday.

According to him, PDP is noted for developmental programmes and government that employs people in the State, while the APC government only comes in to sack people.

He said, “In 2018, over 3000 people were employed by PDP, and all of them were sacked by the APC government. Over 1000 of them were sacked at Ekiti State University. Three months ago, the Court of Appeal gave a judgment that the workers be reinstated, but up till now, they’ve not been reinstated. The APC has chosen not to obey the judgment of the court.”