In this interview, with El Yakuq Ibraheem, the Nasarawa State PDP chairman, Hon Francis Orogu, has served Governor Abdullahi Sule and the ruling APC quit notice
You Just Met With Some Critical Stakeholders of Your Party. What Is The Essence Of The Meeting?
We decided to meet with the chairmen of the elders’ forum across the thirteen local government areas as well as all candidates, including our governorship candidate, His Excellency, David Emmanuel Umbugadu. The meeting was fruitful and was meant to fine-tune ways as well to strategies ahead of next year’s general election.
You may wish to speak on the state of the PDP in Nasarawa State…
You are aware of what transpired in the last governorship election in Nasarawa state where the PDP polled 175,000 votes; the All Progressive Grand Alliance (APGA) got 122,000 and the All Progressives Congress (APC) scored 200,000 votes. Now with the merging of PDP and APGA, the PDP would have an edge. Our party has a greater chance come 2023. Again, we in PDP have a better chance to clinch the 2023 election because our party has little or no internal squabbles which emanated from the party primary election like it is obtainable in the APC. We conducted the best ever primary election from the multitudes of aspirants cut across all elective positions from the house of assembly, house of representatives, and senate to the governorship. We had three governorship aspirants, thirteen senatorial aspirants, and 77 aspirants for the house of assembly seats which is almost 100 aspirants. The happiest thing to unveil to you today is that no single petition was filed aftermath of the primaries. I can attest to you that we don’t have frictions in our party and I can tell you authoritatively that PDP is free from the protest by aspirants that contest and lose elections, unlike the APC which is disintegrating on a daily basis. I mean everybody has been replaced in APC. In the Keana constituency, you will discover that the APC has two candidates who were presented with two certificates of return from the party. These cases are across the thirteen local governments. We have the case of Gaza, Wadada, Muluku, Godiya Akwashiki, Labaran Magaji, and some assembly candidates too. In the PDP, after our primaries, no single delegate’s name was removed by either the national secretariat or the state chapter. You are aware of the irregularities that dogged the same exercise by the APC. This includes falsifying a list of delegates and the dust is yet to settle in Nasarawa. Fundamentally, all that transpired in APC was due to a lack of coordination and unity of purpose amongst leaders.
What’s your take on the outcome of the Osun state election?
I know is a different ball game, because with Osun election is a clear reason that heads will roll in the next year, election, Governor Sule should just prepare to go to the United Arab Emirate (Dubai)’ or the United State of America to rest as he has already declared. The handwriting on the wall is showing us that Engineer Abdullahi Sule is a governor on exit. We will retire him politically speaking.
What should PDP members look forward to as we head towards the 2023 polls?
They should expect nothing short of taking over leadership in the state so we can reposition the state by providing much-needed good governance. Governor Abdullahi Sule is a paperweight politician and we will defeat him at the poll come 2023. He emerged as the governor of the state in 2019 through democracy, that is what democracy can do to you, it can subtract as well add to you. I had him saying he will go to Dubai or U.S because is not an indigene of the state, if not he will go back to his village after PDP retired him from politics.
How can you rate Governor Sule in terms of Infrastructural development?
Governor Sule did nothing in the state reason that is not from the state, everything under Sule is a snail movement.
