By Sadiq Umar, Abuja.
The Governor of Niger state, Mr. Babangida Aliyu, has debunked the report that seven governors of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) are secretly working for All Progressive Congress presidential candidate, Gen. Muhammadu Buhari ahead of the forthcoming election.
Imo State Governor Rochas Okorocha, had on Monday claimed that seven PDP governors are already working for the election of Buhari and had been holding secret meetings with APC .
“Buhari’s victory has been sealed and delivered and today, about seven governors who are not in APC are coming to hold meeting with us privately,” he said.
“There is fear in the country and the fear is that they know that Buhari is a good man and he will win.”
But speaking on Tuesday during the PDP governors forum in Lagos, Aliyu who is the chairman of the northern governors’ forum, faulted Okorocha’s claim.
“A south-eastern governor said yesterday that some governors are working for Buhari,” he said.
“Many of you here know the history of G7 governors. We were fighting for injustice but those who had their personal ambition left but those of us who were genuinely interested for the correction of those anomalies stayed in PDP.”
Aliyu accused the opposition party of corruption, saying the process that produced Buhari was unjust. “I was speaking to one of the presidential candidates and he told me that the bullion vans came that night to distribute money to produce Buhari because he promised them that he was going to do one term,” he said.
“The party or people who adopted Buhari on that their primary day did that to extend their looting, stealing of public property into the nation.
“They have done it in a state and they want to transfer it to the whole country. When they went for that primary, the candidate they had in mind was different from what transpired that day.
“That’s the anomaly that has taken over Nigeria and that is why we were very happy that these elections were shifted because the elections were held on February 14, believe me, the tension then, whoever was announced or whichever party was announced, would have a lot of problems.”
Similarly, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has denounced the allegation made Governor Okorocha that seven PDP governors plan to defect to the All Progressive Congress (APC).
National Publicity Secretary of the PDP, Mr. Olisah Metuh described the allegation as baseless and one of the lies being peddled by the opposition.
He expressed worry over what he described as the APC’s habit of peddling lies in a bid to win voters over to its side.
Metuh while giving an assurance of the untainted loyalty of all the PDP governors to President Goodluck Jonathan, also expressed confidence that the PDP will defeat the APC with a wide margin in the forthcoming elections.
He said the PDP would cease to respond to the unfounded stories being mischievously peddled by the opposition, describing the act as one of desperation coming from a party that knows defeat is imminent.
