The presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress, Muhammadu Buhari, and all the candidates of the party in the South-South zone have been assured that the zone would vote massively for them in the general elections.
The Rivers State chapter of the APC gave the assurance on Friday in a statement by its chairman, Davies Ikanya.
There are six states in the zone, namely Rivers, Bayelsa, Delta, Cross River, Akwa Ibom and Edo State.
Mr. Buhari’s main opponent in the March 28 presidential election, President Goodluck Jonathan of the Peoples Democratic Party, hails from Bayelsa State.
While congratulating Mr. Buhari on the success of the South-South rally held in Port Harcourt, the Rivers State capital on Thursday, the party said there is nothing to compare between both candidates when it comes to caring for the people of region.
“While President Jonathan has confessed that he deliberately refused to develop Rivers State and the entire of South-South, General Buhari built one of the refineries in South-South and constructed the only road that links Bayelsa with Rivers State,”
“This shows that if he is given another opportunity, he will develop the South-South more than President Jonathan, who has refused to develop the region and therefore does not deserve the people’s vote.
“The people of the South-South will indeed vote massively for General Buhari and other APC candidates for the various elections on March 28 and April 11.”
The party commended the APC presidential flag bearer for promising to fight corruption frontally upon assuming office as Nigeria’s next president.
It said it concurred with Mr. Buhari that “if we don’t fight corruption, corruption will kill us as a nation,” adding that “We are privileged to have Buhari as our presidential candidate; he is the bullet we have to fight corruption and by 29th, March, 2015 when General Buhari would have being announced as the President elect of Nigeria, corruption will be reduced by 80 percent.”.
The APC dismissed President Jonathan as an unmitigated failure, saying: “His clueless administration has run our economy aground. Our naira is so devalued and the economy in such shambles that allowing Jonathan to stay in office a day longer will spell doomed for our beleaguered country.”
The party noted that under Mr. Jonathan’s watch, the PDP has continued to bomb, maim, kill and destroy anything that is APC. It alleged that over 40 of its members had been killed while its secretariats had been bombed and destroyed.
“Our lives are on the line just because of election. Dame Judith Amaechi, the wife of the Governor of Rivers State and Director General of the APC Campaign Organisation, was attacked few days ago while campaigning, by the PDP hoodlums,” it said.
“Chidi Adi Amaechi, the younger brother of Governor Amaechi, a student of Igbinedion University, Okada in Edo State, was attacked brutally and his life is on the line just because of election.
“Our campaign Directors, Ade Sam Wobo and Emmanuel Chinda, were all attacked and only escaped death by the grace of God. Is that the type of leadership that we want for South-South and Nigeria as a whole?”
The APC said the PDP hates the zone “and we will surely punish them with our votes and with the eradication of cloned cards through the use of Smart Card Reader by INEC, PDP will surely be buried come March, 28th, 2015 to save our nation from the hands of vicious and clueless leadership.”
