PDP couldn’t have won Borno bye-election – APC

The All Progressives Congress has described as false the claim by the Peoples Democratic Party that it was robbed of the victory in last Saturday’s Borno-Central senatorial election.

A statement by the National Publicity Secretary of the APC, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, on Tuesday, faulted the claim by the opposition party that the APC, the Independent National Electoral Commission and security forces colluded to rob the PDP of victory.

The statement said, “It amounts to dishonesty on the part of the PDP to expect victory in Borno State, where it had a dismal outing during the last general election in March and April, and where the opposition party has remained sharply divided.

“For the umpteenth time, we will like to say that for any opposition to be credible and relevant, it must avoid engaging in bare-faced distortion of facts and making ridiculous claims that cannot be supported by available evidence.”

Describing the claim by the PDP as ludicrous, the APC said it remained the most popular party in the state – going by the outcome of the last elections in the state.

It said, “We have, therefore, decided to present the facts to Nigerians so they can be the judge. In the 2015 presidential election, our party, the APC, got 473,543 votes compared to a paltry 25,640 votes received by the PDP. In the 2015 governorship election in Borno, the APC scored 649,913 votes to the measly 34,771 votes by the PDP.

“The National Assembly election was not different. The APC won all the three senatorial seats and 10 in the House of Representatives, leaving nothing for the pitiful PDP. The APC also won 28 seats in the state House of Assembly in which the pathetic PDP got zero.”

“Put these figures side by side with the fact that the people of Borno have long distanced themselves from the PDP, which presided over the worst moment in the history of the state that saw thousands of deaths, displacements as well as destruction of schools, farms, markets, etc., by Boko Haram, and one can clearly realise that the PDP was simply lying to itself and the nation by suggesting that it had any chance in last Saturday’s election.”

The APC said that the PDP had done nothing to win the hearts of the people of Borno in the past, adding that the APC had done so much to bring more people in the state into its fold.