Edo State Governor Adams Oshiomhole has said that the All Progressives Congress will not tolerate election riggers who do not fit into the party’s change slogan.
The governor speaking after he cast his ballot for the Party Primaries into the House of Assembly yesterday at Azama Primary School, Jattu, he said “I will be surprised if anybody who had participated in this transparent election decides to leave simply because he didn’t win. If such people want to leave, we will escort them out because it means they cannot fit into the logic and philosophy of ‘Change’.
“The ‘Change’ we talk about is not just to change and replace the Federal Government of PDP, we also want to change the habit, the language of our political design and practice whereby people use guns rather than ballot papers.”
He also expressed his satisfaction with the conduct of the Primaries. He said “Everybody is smiling because they all know that whatever happens, only one person is going to emerge and because this is a party affair, there is really no loser. All the candidates are APC candidates. The winner will be the APC candidate, so there are no losers if we believe in the principles of intra-party democracy.
“The beautiful thing here is that as the governor of the state, this is my own constituency, this is my own ward and I didn’t have to call people to step down for one particular person to emerge because I think that if a man cannot win a primary election on his own, then how can he expect to win a popular election and if I decree and use or misuse my office to impose somebody at the level of the primaries, during the popular election in February, will I have the power to impose that person on the electorate?
“So, I am very happy that people have turned out and I am even more happy that the place is peaceful. Nobody is shouting, nobody is fighting and the aspirants themselves are all seated together as brothers and sisters. It cannot be better than this and for me, when we begin to realise that the votes count, then our democracy is on.”