Dr Jibril Ahmadu, the Special Adviser to Governor Yahaya Bello of Kogi State on Youths and Students Affairs, has expressed optimism that the All Progressives Congress (APC) will win Saturday’s governorship poll.
Ahmadu disclosed this on Thursday, saying that everything, including the performance of the governor, favoured the APC to win.
“APC is winning this election; our chance is bright as the moon and the sun.
“We are already putting in our best, and very optimistic with the effort so far victory is guaranteed,” Ahmadu said.
According to him, looking at the thematic of politics in terms of incumbency, political structure and existence of a pattern of elections, the APC has an upper hand above other political parties and their candidates.
He said the track record and performance of the outgoing governor being used for the campaign remained another selling point for the ruling party to retain the state.
“The APC in Kogi, over the years, has been able to maintain a spread in the dividends of democracy and governance in all the three senatorial zones.
“Hospitals are built across the whole state, roads are constructed across the whole state as well as education and school facilities.
“These are dividends of the APC. The party has done well in the state, let our good works speak for us,” he said.
Stating that the party has been using its achievements to campaign, Ahmadu, decried that instead of opposition parties to focus on their manifesteos, they had been engaging in politics of ethnicity, hatred and hegemony.
He added that the APC Candidate, Alhaji Usman Ododo, who had been spreading “the Kogi Agenda”, would make the party coast home with victory.
Ahmadu said the APC flagbearer in the Saturday’s poll, remained the youngest candidate on the ballot and most experienced in governance with huge administrative prowess.
According to him, as a successful chattered accountant and auditor per excellence with youthful strength, Ododo has proven to be a man to beat in the poll.
He said that being part of the Kogi government for the past seven years, Ododo understands governance and intricacies of running a state as sensitive as Kogi.
He also predicated APC’s victory on the fact that the party had been in power in the last eight years and also deliver 100 per cent votes to President Bola Tinubu in the Feb. 25 Presidential Election.
“Tell me, where is the opposition parties’ agitations and imagination coming from to win Kogi, it is not possible. APC is unrivalled,” he said.
On pockets of pre-election violence, Ahmadu said that the situation had been grossly amplified by people who were not friends of the government.
He said that APC, whose selling point was its achievements on security of lives and property, could not be master-minding violence as being insinuated by some politicians.
“Don’t you think that if APC is encouraging violence, it is trying to destroy its name that it is supposed to use for campaign? It is laughable.
“APC members have been severally attacked but we are law abiding people. We work with strategy in approach to governance and winning elections.
“We will not come with some politicians to exchange banters of violence,” he said.
On some analysts predicting doom for the ruling party because some senior APC members seemed not to be with the party’s candidate, Ahmadu described this as untrue.
According to him, most stakeholders of the party are with the government and the governor, except one of two ‘Judases’ who cannot influence election in any polling unit.
“APC is going to win hands down,” he reaffirmed.
INEC has fixed Saturday for the off-cycle governorship elections in Kogi, Imo and Bayelsa states.
