…Inaugurates campaign council
BY BENEDICT NWACHUKWU, ABUJA
National Chairman of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), Senator Abdullahi Adamu, has charged the Governor of Kebbi State, Mohammed Atiku Bagudu-led 61 member Campaign Council for the June 18 gubernatorial election in Ekiti State to do their best to ensure victory for the party and its candidate.
Adamu gave the charge on Monday while inaugurating the Council at the Buhari House National Secretariat of the party in Abuja.
“We are inaugurating a committee that will take charge of campaign, marketing our candidate. Our first gubernatorial primary since coming to office as governor of Ekiti and it was hitch-free, the fact that no one is challenging the outcome of this primary, that is a very big kudos for the Ekiti chapter of our great party.
“With this inauguration today, we are giving you a marching order. The campaign council and our great people of Ekiti State, particularly, our own good people of Ekiti State on the platform of our great party the APC.
“Ekiti is the first election that we will be having, in this dispensation of APC. God has blessed our lives, God has blessed my life and my political career. Once there’s a contest, there will be a winner and a loser, we are never on the losing side.
“But we don’t take that for granted. We are going to work as hard as we can to ensure that we deliver our gubernatorial candidate as the next governor of Ekiti State.
“As we inaugurate this Committee, I have one thing in the marching order of this party and that is don’t come home crying, don’t come home crying. If there’s a crying, let them go and cry for their principals, not us.
“President Muhammadu Buhari is at the beginning of his trip out of the presidential villa. He made no secret of it. He’s a man of honour, he seeks no extension, he made it public in this very hall that used to be our NEC hall. He said it that he has been elected for a second time. He is under oath as president to protect and preserve the Nigerian constitution.
“The Nigerian constitution has given him two terms of four years each, he was starting his second term and at the end of it, he doesn’t intend to and doesn’t ask for anybody to ask for a third term or any elongation of tenure.
“Recently, he made the same pronouncement sometimes early this year. So we are on a bond like him to see that he has soft landing and that is to deliver this party to victory and Ekiti State is the first test.
“So he takes this election very seriously, we would try to do as much as possible, we will be guided by the rules of engagement for elections, we will observer every rule, every guideline and we do hope that those who will be responsible for overseeing the compliance will be fair arbiters, will be fair referees, will be fair umpires.
“It is our hope and prayers that God almighty will be with us, will guide us, will ensure that victory is ours,” he said.
Responding on behalf of the council, the Chairman, Governor Mohammed Atiku Bagudu said, “Chairman on behalf of all of us, I wish thank you and appreciate our party for giving us the honour to serve as members of the 2022 Ekiti gubernatorial Campaign Council, you have said it already that this is the first under your able leadership and because it is a first, it will form a memory of what happened in the last four years, because four years ago, we also had gubernatorial election in Ekiti state and I was privileged and honored to serve as chairman. But then, we were opposition in Ekiti, not in government. And then also it was our first test in 2019.
“And equally, we were in transition between the primaries took place and former Chairman John Odigie Oyegun and the election took place under the former chairman, Comrade Adams Oshiomole. And everyone did his very, very best to support us, to support the committee and the committee members did well and I believe we can be no different this time around.
“The committee members, Mr. Chairman, you mentioned to me privately, why we have so many members in the campaign council and I agreed with you, particularly, Mr. Chairman when some people do not appreciate the importance attach to this assignment.
“This assignment should be acknowledged by all party members because we are only important when we are in power. And you will take the election elsewhere as unimportant or serving the party outside our normal abode as unimportant, then we are dooming the party without appreciate them going from that experience because that time in our presentation to the past.
“We requested that the party should study the reports of any ad hoc committee by particularly campaign committees who went the extra mile to ensure that we achieved success particularly in Ekiti. It was no different. President Muhammadu Buhari, apart from visiting twice was on telephone call to follow up to ensure that we are getting it right. Our leaders, Baba Akande, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu all came to support us. Our brother, governor Akeredolu accommodated the campaign council as we move from one place to the other.
“Sometimes we are making double commutes from Akure the state capital. Of course, I will also mention the role of now our secretary, as well as former governor of Ekiti state, Otunba Niyi Adebayo, we couldn’t have achieved the success we did without their support. And we know Chairman said we should not come back to complain. And we could recall hilariously, Mr chairman, the 2018 election in Ekiti state was an election in which stomach infrastructure was thrown at us in which someone broke his neck.
“Well, that’s what was said officially all in an attempt to run away from the hard work of the NWC and the campaign Council in ensuring that we can win Ekiti state. And now we are even more competent, because in the last four years, Governor Kayode Fayemi has done a lot to ensure that Ekiti has remained a progressive state, I have been in the state a number of times, I witness to the work because I helped in commissioning projects.
“And I believe that our party, the APC, chairman in lead, what you are, what you are inaugurating today will be an easier job by what is on the ground. And I pray that as we achieve success in Ekiti, it will blossom in a bigger success in the election in Osun and 2023.
“As was the case, and urge all members of the committee and on behalf of them to appreciate our party so that we will do our very best to do what was on the mind of the executive and the people of Ekiti deserve a special outing by the All Progressive Congress, because they enthusiastically welcomed us, that was the first election in which the Independent National Electoral Commission introduced the card reader technology, meaning the results were transmitted from the polling units to INEC national servers.
“But we did win convincely because we did not go into that election with any sense of entitlement. But we went there fair minded and determined to win. And with the support of the NWC, we won convincingly. So I pray that as we have been given this opportunity, all of us will sacrifice because we are having other primaries, other national and the timetable is short, but I can assure that you we will our very best to reciprocate the confidence that our party has placed on us. Thank you very much.”
