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Osun State Governor Rauf Aregbesola raised the alarm yesterday over plans by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to use unwholesome means to win elections next year.
He urged his party, the All Progressives Congress (APC), to refocus its strategy to wrest power from the PDP.
Aregbesola spoke at the first APC Southwest Assembly in Ibadan the Oyo State capital. The event attracted the cream of the party’s leaders.
The governor also gave an insight into how he won the August 9 governorship election.
He said the masses, particularly women and school children, were those who defied the alleged intimidation of thousands of mostly masked security operatives who went round the state intimidating voters before and during the election.
According to him, women, particularly low cadre women, who are naturally overlooked, and school children, defied gun-wielding security operatives to insist that they would exercise their civic rights and would only vote for the candidate of their choice.
Aregbesola said with the masses and support from other APC-controlled states, the PDP, which he said, hid under the power of the Federal Government to militarise and intimidate voters against performing their civic duties or preventing them from voting for their choice candidates, would have won the election.
He said: “The PDP is determined to take our states from us. They are ruthless opposition that will do anything to deny our people of their democratic choices. If we understand this early enough, we will see the need to stop them on their track. But if we underrate them, we will record losses. The actual winners, those who defeated the opposition in Osun, were the ordinary men and women, particularly women who refused to be intimidated. They came out even in their most dreadful form. For the first time, security operatives put on masks in broad day light in their thousands on trucks, shooting. But women came out to perform their duty. They sang against them and sent signals to them that they would not tolerate terror.
“We must thank and celebrate them. We didn’t prepare them for it but they did it on their own.
“Quickly following the women in the determination to exercise their rights were school children who always sang that people should vote for Aregbesola. It was unbelievable.
“They deflated the ego of the people that wanted to dominate and terrorise us. Yes, our men worked but the determination of our women and the children including artisans, drivers, was high. Politicians must acknowledge them.
“We must let people know that this is what they must do. They must refuse to be cowed, that they should vote and defend their votes. They deserve accolades for the victory of our party in the State of Osun. I will never forget them. Women that one would think wrongly are the least in a struggle like this.”
Aregbesola said when President Goodluck Jonathan came to Osun a week before the election to campaign for his party’s candidate, he referred to APC governors as miscreants. The governor wondered if winning elections turns one to a miscreant.
But he said even beggars refused to take money from them because they were not acceptable in the state.
Aregbesola advised his party men to review their strategy if the party is serious about winning future elections, saying the PDP would stop at nothing to win elections.
Our policies and programmes must be geared towards mobilising and educating the people. From the leadership to the lowest level of our party, we must inspire the people. The only ones they cannot defeat are the people. They arrested close to 1,000 of our leaders the night before the election. They even attempted to enter my house at Government House at about 1:30 am on election day.
Warning of what is ahead in next year’s election, he said.
“The real stake in Osun is ego but in Lagos State, it is going to be for both ego and materials.”
The PDP took electoral contest as a war. But It was all well that ended well.” He said.
National Vice Chairman of the party in the Southwest, Chief Pius Akinyelure, said the APC was making history by initiating the first zonal assembly.
Akinyelure alleged that the PDP was promoting “a retinue of rogue regimes that negate the fundamentals of the egalitarian political heritage of the Southwest democratic space” in the zone.
Oyo State Governor Abiola Ajimobi urged the party to leverage on its intellectual base to sustain and improve on the achievements recorded in Southwest states.
In its eight-point action, the communique issued at the end of the meeting, said the APC in the zone resolved to re energize the party through alliances, work in line with the fact that leadership is not about taking people to where they want to be but where they ought to be and that the party had demonstrated rare performance in governance that meets global standards in the states under their control.
The party also urged its members not to revert to the culture of pedestrian politics where appeal to base and banal instincts is the rule because of slight setback. It also resolved to energise younger people and the masses by embarking on mass mobilisation and sensitisation of the people as done during membership drive.
The APC in the zone also resolved to give the 2015 elections “all that is legally necessary, realising that Nigerians are dealing with tricky and devilish people in power” and that it must review its strategy and redouble its efforts since the PDP has turned ruthless and ready to snatch power through a civilian coup.
To achieve the above, the party resolved to build a formidable, modern regional secretariat equipped with the latest information technology for swift , smart and decisive response to the challenges of the party.
It saluted the exemplary courage of the women in Osun State in standing up to the terror tactics of the PDP.
The party reiterated its commitment to regional integration being midwifed by the Development Agenda for Western Nigeria (DAWN) commission and urged the leadership of all the states in the zone to be committed to the project.
It also reiterated its commitment to true federalism.
Source: The Nation
