The Lagos State All Progressives Congress has chided the Peoples Democratic Party and Governor Godwin Obaseki of Edo State, accusing them of chasing shadows with their baseless allegations against the party and its National Leader, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu. According to the party’s chairman, Alhaji Tunde Balogun, Obaseki is the architect of his own imminent defeat in Saturday’s governorship election. The PDP and Obaseki had alleged that the APC and Asiwaju Tinubu were planning to rig the election and that the party had sourced N300 million form ocal councils in the state for the purpose. Reacting to the allegation, Balogun said: “Overwhelmed by the prospects of grim failure in this weekend’s governorship election in Edo, the Peoples Democratic Party and its mercenary candidate Godwin Obaseki, have resorted to chasing their own dark shadows. The governor is casting false accusation and blame at everybody for his imminent defeat. However, the person he should blame the most is the person to whom he dare not admit the truth – himself. He has been the chief architect of his own defeat to conceal this reality he has dedicated himself to construct an edifice the foundation of which is made of fiction and the floors of which are the stuff of malice and lies. “The latest untruth of the PDP and Obaseki is the evil lie that All Progressives Congress and our National Leader, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, plan to rig the election and buying votes with N300 million allegedly polled from local councils in Lagos State. One must say that Obaseki has a fertile if wild and paranoid imagination. Had he better used that imagination to govern wisely instead of governing as if he were a conquering invader, then he would not be in the pitiable circumstance he now finds himself. Obaseki has always been his own and his state’s worst enemy. “Ordinarily, we would not dignify Obaseki’s desperation with a response, we know the poor man is losing his already feint grip on reality. His brain now walks the halls of fantasyland where he goes about scaring himself with images that exist only in his guilty mind. His allegation is a pure malicious lie and after he loses his immunity as governor he will be asked to pay for this slander. “In making this allegation, Obaseki engages in a misdirection classic to people of his mendacious and mean ilk. The very wrong which he falsely attributes to others is the very thing he has in his dark heart to do himself. Obaseki plans on stealing money from Edo’s public purse to fund his own ambitions. In that this is what is on his mind, he cannot help but believe that everyone is as devious as he is. It is said that a thief is the person most worried about some stealing from him and a liar most preoccupied with being lied to. Obaseki’s fabrications prove the wisdom of these maxims. “As such, Obaseki is a study of political pathology. Failing to salvage his doomed campaign, Obaseki is now trying to attribute his impending loss to causes other than his imperious character and mean-spirited form of personal leadership. It is Obaseki who seeks to rig the election because he knows tilting the playing field is the only way he can win. Thus, he employs the sophomoric distraction. He is acting much like the criminal who shouts that one house is being robbed. With everyone’s attention thusly diverted, he believes he will be free to break into another. But the electorate is wise to his ways and in fact the electorate in its collective wisdom is much wiser than Obaseki. “They will not be fooled by his false allegations. They perfectly understand the personal meanness and lack of fundamental goodness of this ill- tempered man. The lie about rigging is Obaseki’s and his cohorts’ desperate heave to gain public sympathy. However, they deserve no sympathy they have gone about like bullies and braggarts all along. Now, that they face the reality of the honest electoral contest before them, they get weakened and begin to sweat lie ice melting in the midday sun. If he is so tough and strong, he should stand up like the tough guy he claims to be and squarely face what is about to come. “Neither the APC nor Asiwaju Bola Tinubu will rig this or any other election. If Obaseki wants to find the riggers, he should look at his own reflection and call his fellow PDP leaders to do the same. APC has no need to do anything, but ask our supporters to vote on Election Day. Pastor Ise- Iyamu is an honorable and visionary man who has won the hearts of Edo people for his sterling leadership qualities, past excellent records in public service and robust agenda to improve the daily lives of Edo people. Ise-Iyamu is a man of integrity who keeps to his words and is committed to working in the interest of Edo people. “Obaseki says our national leader has no business in Edo, someone should remind Obaseki that he once begged Asiwaju and others to help him in Edo. Someone should also remind him that Asiwaju is a Nigerian who has freedom of speech and a right to political association that even Obaseki dare not attempt to abridge. “Asiwaju believes in democracy and rule of law in any part of the country. He believes in progressive good governance for the people. He sees unity of purpose throughout the country that Nigeria may continue along the path of full and enduring development. While these good things do not sit well with Obaseki, they are what the people want and what the country needs. “Because of this, Obaseki’s days as governor are severely numbered, no matter the outlandish lies he coughs out. By his consistent assault on democracy and progress in Edo, Obaseki does not deserve another term in office. The people of Edo should send him home on Saturday.”
