Edo 2016: Oshiomhole can’t stop Ize-Iyamu’s victory —PDP

•As Edebiri dumps party

THE national leadership of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has observed that Governor Adams Oshiomhole, “who is battling to have his protege, Godwin Obaseki, as his successor in office, has become nervous, as indicated by his threat to use anti-graft agencies to stop the party’s candidate.”

The PDP said this  in a statement issued by its interim national publicity secretary, Prince Dayo Adeyeye, in Abuja, on Thursday, that the governor’s threat to drag Pastor Osagie Ize-Iyamu, before the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), was “preposterous” and a sign that he was “nervous and unsettled” by the prospect of losing the state to  PDP during the forthcoming governorship election.

The party wondered “when it has become the duty of Governor Oshiomhole to dictate for  EFCC.

“We have observed in recent times, the utterances of the governor of Edo State during the APC’s governorship campaigns ahead of the September 10 election in the state and we wish to remind the governor that he should maintain the sanctity of his office as an executive governor of the state instead of directing  EFCC of who to arrest or prosecute.”

The PDP argued that Oshiomhole’s statement confirmed “the belief and the opinion of perceptible Nigerians that the anti-corruption war of the  current administration is nothing but a partisan political agenda to intimidate and silence PDP.”

The party  condemned  the “despicable and uncouth language used by the ‘go and die’ governor against the person of Pastor Osagie Ize-Iyamu, which is clearly unbecoming of the holder of the high office of governor of a state.”

It called on the ruling party in both Edo State and at the federal levels to “at least, for once, play by the rules,” saying that “all the great works done by the   former PDP-led administration to ensure the sanctity of the ballot box has been virtually destroyed by the APC -led administration.”

“We are now in the era of inconclusive elections. We will not tolerate any harassment, intimidation and oppression of our candidate  during the  governorship election. We will also not allow  APC to destroy this democracy we have laboured for 16 years to build.”

Meanwhile, Chief Solomon Edebiri, the PDP aspirant in the June 20 party primaries, said that he had resigned from the party.

According to News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), Edebiri made the disclosure while speaking with newsmen in Obayanton, near Benin, on Thursday.

He attributed his decision to leave the party to “dishonesty of the party leadership.’’

According to him, what happened on June 20 was awful and a complete negation of what democratic tenet is all about.