I Have Done Enough For A Second Term, Insists Akpatason

In Akoko-Edo, All Progressives Congress (APC) and the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) are in close battle for the House of Representatives seat.  ALEMMA-OZIORUVA ALIU spoke to the two major candidates; incumbent Peter Appatason of APC and Oladele Bankole-Balogun of PDP.

HOW have you been mobilising your people and what are your chances in the election? 

  We have had a very robust campaign in Akoko-Edo. We had a very competitive primary which actually made us to go into intensive sensitisation and canvassing so in the process, we covered virtually every area we needed to cover and thereafter, we are facing the general election. 

  We had a very competitive primary where we had a very large number of delegates involved in the exercise. We have actually used that opportunity to do very serious campaign so what we are doing is rounding up what we have commenced long time ago. 

  We have done ward rounds; we have covered wards headquarters and now we are in the process of unit-to-unit campaigns. The rallies have been very fantastic, we have had large turnout and it is very clear to me that Akoko-Edo people are happy with APC, they are very happy with the governor, they are happy with what we have been able to do as legislators as well as the contribution of the local government chairman.   

  As a result, they are quite disposed to supporting APC. It also appears that Akoko-Edo has keyed into this nationwide agitation for change, which has propelled the people faster than any other factor particularly at the federal level.

Your opponent from the PDP says you have not done enough to merit a second term. How do you react to this? 

  He is not in a position to assess my performance because he is not familiar with Akoko-Edo terrain. He does not know what is happening in Akoko-Edo so he is alien to what I have done and what is happening in Akoko-Edo. 

  His judgment is defective, biased. I have put projects in virtually every village in Akoko-Edo. There is no Rep member that has ever achieved half of what I have achieved.

I have covered every ward and I have not shown bias in the distribution of my projects and my projects are demand-driven. They are what the people need like water, like electricity, like ICT facilities, like roads, these are the kind of things the people want. 

  I have not seen any other person that has done it before so it will be sheer ignorance and bias for anybody in the opposition party to make such spurious claim. I want to challenge my opponent to show what they have done, at least one of them is federal commissioner and he has not been able to provide employment for anybody. 

  I have trained over 300 people and I have empowered virtually all of them. I have made employment possible for a number of graduates in federal MDAs. So for anybody to say that I have not done enough, I think the person must be operating from the sky.

What are you expecting from the coming presidential election, which seems to be a two horse race between your party and the PDP? 

  I am not sure it is a serious contest; it is obviously a contest because we have an opponent but then, going by the dynamics on ground today, it is obvious that APC is winning outright. 

  I hear them boasting of rigging. We are not bothered; we are prepared for them. They tried it somewhere and they think they can do it again but thank God in Osun it failed, it Edo it failed and they will fail again.