Benue youths march for Jonathan’s re-election

PDP intensifies guber campaign in Plateau, Kwara

TENS of thousands of youths in Benue State, including students of tertiary institutions, at the weekend staged a solidarity march in the state capital, Makurdi, urging the re-election of President Goodluck Jonathan so that he could continue his developmental strides in the country.

   This comes as the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) governorship campaigns intensified across Plateau State for the election of Gyang Pwajok. The campaign train was at Wase, Langtang North and Mikang local councils, where Pwajok assured indigenes of his readiness to move the state to greater heights if voted into power.

   He told them: “We need to come together as one so that we can break the barriers of religion, ethnicity and geography. If not for God, it would not have been possible for me as a young man to be counted among the 109 senators. 

   “I want to promise everyone here that I will not betray the interest of Plateau State. We will continue to work with the young and old because it is only in togetherness that we can truly be greater.”

   However, the campaign office of the governorship candidate of African Democratic Congress (ADC), Ibrahim Sabiu Musa, has been vandalized by suspected political thugs.

   It was learnt that the office, situated along Enugu Road in Jos, which also serves as the party’s state secretariat, was vandalized on Thursday night, a few hours after the party’s presidential candidate visited there on campaign tours.

   Similarly, the party’s flag bearer in Kwara State, Simeon Ajibola, speaking during the flag-off of his campaign in Bode-Sadu, the headquarters of Moro local council, has promised “true free education” from primary to secondary schools if voted in.

   According to him, “proper formal education” should be the inclusive right of all indigenes “irrespective of their economic status.” 

   The event, attended by a tumultuous crowd, was also an avenue to publicly reconcile many of the aspirants who lost to him during the primaries. They all embraced before their supporters and promised full support for both he and President Jonathan.

   Unfolding some of his programmes if voted to power, Ajibola said he would establish a general hospital in each of the 16 councils, staffed with “competent doctors and other health workers. There will also be affordable diagnostic centre in each of the hospitals.”

   Some of them who spoke at the event included Makanjuola Ajadi, Dele Belgore (SAN), who urged voters to vote out the taskmasters and achieve freedom for Kwarans, and Hakeem Lawal, son of the late former governor of the state, Mohammed Lawal.

   Addressing the youths in Makurdi, the Minister of Interior, Comrade Abba Moro, urged them to remain resolute in the path of truth and vote for President Jonathan and other PDP candidates because Jonathan has achieved tremendously in the state.

   Moro urged the youths not to be deceived by the Senate Minority Leader, George Akume, and Dr Samuel Ortom, who are blacklisting the PDP that brought them into political limelight.