Edo election: PDP ward-to-ward campaign unsettles APC

Ahead of the September 19 governorship election in Edo State, the Peoples Democratic Party’s strategic ward-to-ward campaign in the 192 electoral wards across the 18 local government areas of the state has continued to yield its desired result.

The party had painstakingly visited all the 64 wards in the northern senatorial district of the state before commencing the same exercise in the central senatorial district preaching the Making Edo Great Again (MEGA) manifesto of the Governor Godwin Obaseki-led administration and the next stage of development in the second term campaign.

Strategically, in most of the wards visited, Governor Obaseki commissioned some state-sponsored projects in fulfilment of his 2016 campaign promises, while some new projects were flagged off. But, the opposition All Progressives Congress, which only flagged off its campaign on August 8 seemed to have realised that its strategic campaign of moving from one big town to another in the local government areas is weak. The exercise, according to pundits, has little or no impact as the people are finding it difficult to understand the SIMPLE agenda of empty promises.

No wonder the Director-General of the Progressives Governors Forum and a chieftain of the APC, Salihu Lukman, recently faulted the party’s campaign approach ahead of the election.

Lukman had lamented that everybody in the APC was being blackmailed to accept the way the Edo 2020 governorship campaign was being organised as the best way to win the election under the control of the sacked former National Chairman, Adams Oshiomhole.

“This is wrong and in the long run it will be injurious to the electoral viability of the party. The issue of Edo election and its management therefore needs to be reviewed by our party,” Lukman said.

“Unfortunately, given the way that the Edo State Governorship campaign has become a tool of blackmail in the hands of Comrade Oshiomhole, even internal party consultations to roll out initiatives towards moving the party forward seems to be slow,” he lamented. Feelers from the APC indicate that having realised their huge mistake after nearly one month of the campaign, the party is thinking of embarking on a late hour ward-to-ward campaign, an indication that they lack ideas.  (The Nation)