By Dirisu Yakubu – Abuja
The Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, has said it will only congratulate Governor Rotimi Akeredolu of Ondo state in Saturday’s election after the determination of the manner of emergence of his candidacy by the court.
The PDP whose candidate, Eyitayo Jegede came second in the election also dismissed call by the national caretaker committee chairman of the All Progressives Congress, APC, and governor of Yobe state, Mai Mala Buni for the PDP to congratulate Akeredolu, winner of the election.
Addressing newsmen at the party’s national secretariat, Abuja, PDP national publicity secretary, Kola Ologbindiyan, said Buni ought to know that the manner of Akeredolu’s emergence as candidate in the election is a matter yet to be decided by the court.
He said: “The attention of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, has been drawn to a press conference by the chairman of the National Caretaker Committee of the All Progressives Congress, APC, Governor Mai Mala Buni, wherein he begged the PDP to congratulate the APC over the outcome of the October 10, Ondo governorship election.
“It is indeed ludicrous and completely absurd that Governor Buni is begging for endorsement of the election in spite of his awareness that the internal mechanism that produced his party’s candidate, as presided over by him, was faulty.
“Nigerians already knows that the emergence of Governor Mai Buni in the national leadership of his party is a subject of litigation and as such, his nomination of any candidate for the election is seen, even among his party members, as a nullity until the court says otherwise.
“It will therefore be pathetic for Governor Mai Buni to attempt to use the PDP to build something on the nothingness of his position in his party. The PDP is too structured as a party to be used by anybody, under any guise, in that regard.”
The publicity scribe also claimed that an unnamed top official of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC in sync with a governor provided the money with which the Ondo poll was manipulated in favour of the ruling party.
“Perhaps, Governor Buni is not aware that information available in the public space and to the PDP, showed that a very top-level management official of the NNPC, through a North-West governor elected on the platform of the APC, diverted huge amounts of money, in dollars, from our nation oil resources to fund vote-buying in the Ondo election.
“Instead of begging the PDP for congratulatory message, Governor Buni should rather speak to this disturbing stealing of oil money to fund his party’s vote buying at the expense of Nigerians who are bearing the brunt of increase in the pump price of fuel and corruption in the oil sector under the APC.
“While our party will, in due course, make its official position on the outcome of the Ondo election known, the PDP urges President Muhammadu Buhari to take steps that will accelerate the amendment of the electoral act, which was stalled following his failure to sign the amended Act of the National Assembly in 2019.”
