By Lateef Ibrahim, Abuja
Governorship candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the forthcoming Edo governorship election holding in September 21st, this year, Mr Asue Ighodalo, has appealed to all other aspirants who contested the party’s primaries with him to work with him for the success of the party in the election.
Among the aspirants who sought the governorship ticket of the PDP with him is the Deputy governor of the State , Hon. Philip Shiabu, who however contested the primary in another parallel convention, where he emerged as candidate.
Ighodalo, a lawyer by training, made the appeal on Tuesday in Abuja shortly after he was issued his certificate of return at the PDP national secretariat in Abuja.
He maintained that now that the contest was over, the party should unite to retain Edo State.
According to him, “My other co-aspirants, it’s good to contest, but the contest is over and like I have been begging each and every one of you, I will continue begging you, please, let’s come together as one.
“Since my first day in this party, I have been begging you and I will continue begging because it’s critical and extremely critical that Edo State must and shall be the grace God remain a PDP party, and that will be made easier if we work together as a team.
“And we will, by the grace of God, Almighty work together. I will keep on begging, we must unite”, he said.
The gubernatorial candidate assured that he would listen and take their advice if elected, adding, “we all will be the governor of Edo State.”
He promised to run a government that is propelled by the youths, for youths and with the youths.
Continuing, he said, “I will take their strength and creativity. I will take their ability to work hard; I will take their ingenuity and will turn Edo State to the state that every Nigerian will be proud of”.
The PDP National Chairman Ambassador Umar Damagum, who presented the certificate to him, enjoined the candidate to reach out to other aspirants and reconcile with them.
“You have a daunting task before you,” Damagun stated, adding, “Normally after primaries, a lot of disagreements and it is better to reconcile yourselves”.
Continuing, Ighodalo said, “I’m urging the candidate to go after your fellow candidates and make them see reason why you must work as a team so that Edo will be an easy ride for us.
“We have seen what has happened in other parties, let us not rejoice because they are having their own challenges.
“We should be more focused on our own challenges and we should be more focused to take that state back for PDP”, he said.
The National Organizing Secretary of PDP, Hon Umar Bature, on his part, said, “This journey started sometimes around September last year. It has been very difficult but we have learnt a lot of lessons.
“I think Edo is a peculiar state. It is not only PDP. We saw the drama in Labour Party, APC and other party. It is not good tidying to report such behaviour.
“But I believe as a party we did our best to give everybody a level playing field in terms of transparency and all the actions that we took. You can disagree with us. But history will prove us right that we did the right thing.
“On the party’s side, we have concluded our processes for our candidate to emerge. Now, we are handling him over to the electorate in Edo and INEC.
“We pray that our electorate and INEC will do their best to give everybody a level playing field in the next election”, he stated.
