Ondo election: Count us out of any political alliance ― SDP

The leadership of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) in Ondo State has emphasised that the party is not in any political alliance with any political party in the state ahead of the forthcoming governorship election.

The Chairman of the party in the state, Mr Dele Ogunbameru, who made this disclosure after a meeting with the leaders of the party across the state denied the report that SDP was in alliance with a political party.

Ogunbameru maintained that the party will be fielding and supporting its governorship candidate, Peter Fashua and his running mate, Mrs Racheal Ajayi, as the party flag bearer in the governorship election.

He maintained that SDP will not go into any alliance with either the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) or main opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) or any other political parties in the elections.

He said: “I want to reiterate this and sound it clear for everyone that we remain loyal members of the SDP and we have only one candidate for the Ondo governorship election in the person of Peter Fashua.

“At no time did we enter into an alliance with any candidate or form any alliance with any other political party.

“There are rumours that the SDP has collapsed its structure to another party and collaborating with another candidate in the forthcoming governorship election.

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“This is not true but we want to tell the world that the SDP has a candidate in the October 10 governorship election in Ondo State.

“The party is contesting in the election and come rain, or shine, we are mobilising for our party, we are not working or collaborating with another party

“The name of our candidate is Peter Fashua while the running mate is Mrs Racheal Ajayi. We want the public to disregard the rumour that we are working for a particular party.

“We are not collaborating with APC or collapsing our structure for PDP or ZLP. We cannot collapse our structure with any other party and why should we collapse our structure with any other party, when we remain a party to beat in any election?

“Judging from the last local government election results where we came second, we are a threat to the ruling APC government in the state, this is due to the rising popularity and strength of the party in the state.

Tasking members of the party to move their campaigns to their wards and units, in order to ensure victory for the party, he said “we are seriously preparing and mobilising across the 18 local government areas in the state and we are fully prepared for the election. We have commenced our campaign”

He denied the party losing some of its members to other parties but said “those leaving our party are not a bonafide member of SDP.

Those who claimed to have left the party are those who joined before the local government election to use our platform for the election but they leave immediately after  losing the election, they are not registered members of SDP.”

Ogunbameru who vowed to mobilise the people of the state to resist rigging and defend their votes in October 10 governorship election, said “SDP is ready to block any alleged plots by the ruling APC to rig the October 10 governorship election.

“It will be difficult for this election to be rigged except other parties are sleeping we cannot sleep at the same time.

“The security agents should do their job to ensure that thuggery and violence are not allowed, while money politics should be discouraged too”.

NIGERIAN TRIBUNE