2019: PDP will oust APC in presidential election, Wike says
Confident that Nigerians yearn for the return of pro-people leadership, Governor Nyesom Ezenwo Wike of Rivers State on Monday declared that the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, would win the Presidential election in 2019 polls.
The governor alleged that athough the All Progressives Congress, APC, Federal Government and electoral officials were plotting to subvert the will of the people, they would be resisted by Nigerians.
In a press statement released in Port Harcourt on Monday, the governor who spoke in Asaba on Sunday night during the meeting of the National Working Committee and PDP Governors Forum, said if democratic principles were respected, those pretending to be seeking a second term after a woeful performance would have declined contesting elections.
According to the release signed by the the governor’s Special Assistant on Electronic Media, Mr Simeon Nwakaudu, Governor Wike stated: “We are going to win the Presidency in 2019. We take it for granted that we have won our governorship, National Assembly and State Assembly seats,” he said.
He said that currently, the PDP Governors were orphans in Abuja, hence the need to take over leadership at Federal level.
The governor added: “Frankly speaking, If Nigeria is a country where democracy is democracy, so many won’t talk about contesting election because first of all they need to tell the people what they have done for them.
“What will they come to tell Delta people that they have done in the area? Nothing. What is their confidence? What will they say they have done in the Niger Delta?
“What they don’t understand is that we are more prepared now than in the past. Anybody who thinks that he can come and rig us out, will fail.”
Governor Wike said that the fight against corruption must include the struggle for the promotion of a credible democratic electoral process.
He continued: “Part of corruption that we must fight is the corruption of stealing people’s mandate. That is the biggest corruption. When we get that right, other things will fall in place. It is corruption when you don’t allow those who have won to be declared as winners.”
In the statement, the governor regretted that Nigeria went to smaller countries to observe how elections were conducted, but were unable to conduct credible polls.
The governor said that no matter the antics of the APC Federal Government, Nigerians would insist on credible polls in 2019.
