Edo guber: PPA, PDC, NNPP get candidates

An ace broadcaster in Benin, Mr Thomsa Sado and two others, Mr Bishop Akhalamhe and Mr Frank Ukonga, have emerged the governorship candidates of their respective political parties in Edo.

The political parties are the Progressives Peoples Alliance (PPA), People Democratic Change (PDC) and New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP), respectively.

They all emerged candidates in the primaries conducted in the presence of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) in Benin, on Tuesday.

Speaking after the primaries, Sado anchored his programme on a-seven-point-agenda for the state.

He said that the programme would ensure a positively and totally transformed state.

“In line with the PPA manifesto, the programme cuts across health, education, agriculture, employment, industrialisation, infrastructure development, security and housing,” he said.

On how prepared the party is for the polls, the state chairman of PPA, Mr Davide Esokpunwu, said that the party would win the election.

According to him, “We are not merely in this governorship race but we are strongly in it to win, believing that come September 10, the PPA will be on its way to Dennis Osadebe Avenue.

“As vividly enunciated by our candidate in his acceptance speech, Edo State will be better off for it, going by the laudable programme of our party,” he added.

Also speaking, Akhalamhe, who emerged as the consensus candidate of the PDC, promised to revive the economy of the state through industrialisation with a focus on critical income generating infrastructure.

In his own reaction, Ukonga, who was the former state chairman of the Social Democratic Party (SDP), emerged as the governorship candidate of the NNPP.

He promised enhanced relationship between the government and workers in the state.

Ukonga, who promised to employ 50,000 more workers in the state civil service, vowed to rectify all pending promotion anomalies.