Edo: ‘It’s difficult bringing Obaseki down finally’, Ganduje speaks on victory at polls

The National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress, APC, Umar Abdullahi Ganduje, said the party’s victory in the last Saturday’s governorship election was not an easy one, but very difficult.

He said, it was hard fought because it was APC versus a sitting governor Godwin Obaseki who had left the party in tatters in the previous years.

Ganduje stated while declaring the APC situation room officially closed at the party headquarters in Abuja.
He stated that the way and manner Obaseki left the APC made it very difficult, while he accused Obaseki of leaving APC in pieces to join the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP in the last election which he won.

According to him, the APC never gave up, kepting fighting until Godwin Obaseki was finally brought down after his defeat in the last Saturday’s election .

“The Edo election victory was a difficult exercise because we were competing with a sitting government who was one of our own.

“You know, the children of the same father but different mothers, when there’s a contest, it is always very keen,
“The fight continued until yesterday, we were able to bring him down.

He promised that the party would bring its experiences in Edo State to The Progressive Institute for proper analysis for future elections.

“You know APC’s Institute is driven by knowledge but not just beating about the bush, that is taking action based on knowledge, based on information, based on data. So we have a lot of data now before us.

“We will sit down and invite good social scientists that will scrutinised every action and inaction in order to guide us during subsequent elections.

The National Chairman vowed that APC will work hard to take over all the South East geopolitical zone.
He said: “I would like to remind you that we have a programme. We have a project which is named political de-marginalization.

“That project is to shut down the South-East; there are five states in the zone. We have two states but two for a big party like APC is not good enough. We want to see how we can retake the entire South-East”, he said.

Meanwhile the Senator representing Edo Central Senatorial District, Monday Okpebholo polled 291,667 votes to defeat Asue Ighodalo of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, who scored 247,274 votes.

CAPITAL POST reports that the likes of Adams Oshiomhole, a former governor of Edo State and a current Senator, Comrade Philip Shaibu, a deputy governor to Godwin Obaseki in the last eight years and other notable forces joined to work against the PDP in the State.