Obaseki didn’t give us N15b to get ticket, says PDP

The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has accused the All Progressives Congress (APC) candidate, Pastor Osagie Ize-Iyamu, of peddling falsehood following his allegation that the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) ticket was sold to Governor Godwin Obaseki at N15billion.

Speaking in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, at the weekend, the Edo PDP Campaign Council said there was no truth in Ize-Iyamu’s allegation.

The leader of the Publicity Committee of the council, High Chief Raymond Dokpesi, accompanied by other members of the committee like Senator Dino Melaye, wondered where the governor would have drawn such amount of money to give to the party.

Dokpesi said it was unimaginable that Ize-Iyamu, who defected to the PDP in 2016 to contest a similar position without giving anybody a dime, would be making such an allegation.

However he asked the people to ignore what he referred to as the propaganda and lies of the APC, saying the allegation was designed to pitch PDP members in Edo against their leaders.

Said he: “I don’t know from which of the resources we would have expected Obaseki to have drawn N15billion to give to who? When Ize-Iyamu left APC, did he give anybody a dime to come into PDP and run on its platform in 2016? There is no iota of truth in that allegation. It is part of the known propaganda and lies that APC parades at all times.

“To who did he give the money? Is it to the leaders, the governors, members of Board of Trustees (BoT)? It is arrant nonsense and an unacceptable allegation. It is to incite the PDP followers in Edo State that their leaders had been ‘settled’ and they didn’t get any portion of that.”

Dokpesi warned that federal might would not work in Edo, saying any attempt to deploy such might would be resisted with the people’s power.

He said the majority of Edo voters were behind the PDP, while many APC members were abandoning their party to join the PDP.

Dokpesi said: “If they are thinking of federal might, we are thinking of people’s might. Go and check what has been happening in Edo State. People have been moving in droves from the APC to the PDP in all wards