– By Peter Uwuoruya
The political foundation of the APC was built on a web of lies and deceit. Their ingenuity is in peddling fake news, falsehoods, lies and mistruths. That is the only way they can thrive and prove that they are still in existence.
It is therefore not surprising to see the party resort to their usual trade of deliberately concocting lies and spreading falsehoods and misinformation in a desperate attempt to curry cheap popularity and launder the image of their candidate, Monday Okpehbolo, who can’t make a coherent sentence without embarrassing himself with the wrong turn of words or phrases.
In its latest series of faux and scripted lies, titled “Tension in Government House as Initial Election Analysis Show Asue Ighodalo will Lose,” the APC and its social media hacks attempted to use fake news and fake polls by some faux election experts from Lagos to prepare the ground for their rigging ahead of the September 21 gubernatorial poll.
In their warped thinking, linking the said election experts to Governor Obaseki will give the lies credibility. But as always, the APC and their ilk have failed again. The dimwits claimed that the group used a sampling of voters’ opinions across the 18 local government areas of the State and released their findings which projected that a man who had to opt for a ‘miracle centre’ at the age of 36 to write WAEC and still failed, will become Edo’s next governor with a 55 percent chance of victory.
This is not only laughable but curious. It is quite unfortunate that rather than focusing on reawakening their completely comatose party in Edo State, the APC has resorted to desperate and unconventional campaign tactics; fake news, deceit and falsehood to wet the ground for its rigging machinery which they are known for.
The APC must know that the dynamics of politics have changed. The people are no longer swayed by empty rhetoric and concocted lies, which have over time been the bane of the poisonous politics that deprive the people of good governance while the political class fed fat from their collective patrimony.
For the forthcoming elections, there will be no writing of results. Edo people will come out in their numbers to vote for the PDP and its candidate, Dr. Asue Ighodalo, and will thereafter stay at their various polling units to defend their votes just as they did during the 2020 governorship election which secured the second term victory for Governor Godwin Obaseki.
Edo people are not unaware of some of the rigging strategies deployed in the past by the APC and its tag team of lions and tigers, including the use of violence to intimidate people so that voter turnout will be low and ballot snatching, among others, and will resist them to the last.
There must be electronic transfer of election results and there will be no room for writing of results. So, it is pointless for the APC and its minions to try to use fake polls and fake news to prepare the ground for rigging like the ‘AKPAKO’ man is currently doing.
Edo people will not forget in a hurry the flagrant intimidation, chaos, and misrule during the reign of APC in the State and are sure of the candidate of the PDP come September 21. The thought of the APC still rings the bell of fear, torment, and pain in the minds of Edo people and they are never going back to the reign of lions and tigers.
On September 21, it is PDP or nothing, and there is nothing the APC can do about it.
Uwuoruya writes from Benin City, Edo State