Oshiomhole Says PDP Needs Reconciliation Not APC

All seem to be well with the Edo state governor, Adams Oshiomhole, and the All Progressives Congress governorship candidate for the December 5 Bayelsa election, Timipre Sylva, following the reconciliation meeting over the tiff between the duo during the party primary election in Yenagoa.

Governor Oshiomhole after the meeting noted that the APC was no longer talking about reconciliation and that if that was to be talked about, it was the Peoples Democratic Party that actually needs reconciliation since they were the people that did not conduct party primaries in Bayelsa.

According to This Day report, the party made a strategic move on Monday night to settle the rift between Oshiohmole and Sylva.

The strategies were possibly to enable the APC overcome every form of impediments during the Bayelsa governorship election which is coming up in less than thirty days.

In retrospect, during the controversial APC primary election which Oshiomhole had initially conducted, Sylva emerged the winner of the election. Not satisfied by the conduct, the Edo boss had recommended that the election be cancelled owing to the fact that it was marred by violence.

Another primary election was eventually organised which still returned Sylva as the flag bearer of the party. The outcome led to war of words between them.

However, at the end of the reconciliatory meeting in Abuja, the Edo state governor said that both parties had put the altercations behind them.

Oshiomhole said: “Definitely, even the PDP have issues. We have moved beyond reconciliation, the party in Bayelsa is one. Primaries have been contested and won, candidate has emerged and everybody is queuing behind him. We have met tonight to strategise on all the issues.

“As members of the progressive family, we know that the people of Bayelsa are anxious to benefit from change, to move away from the party of conservatism to the one that promises change and we are happy that we have a candidate that has enormous electoral appeal on the basis of the structures and performance records.

“We have to look through the whole campaign plan and work out best strategies and to package a message to very well address the critical needs of the people.

“We are no longer talking about reconciliation. If we are talking about the people that need reconciliation, it is the PDP because they are the people that do not even have primaries in the first place. Because we are progressives, we had primaries and despite protests we are obliged to service our democratic principles.

“So if you talk about issues of reconciliation, you should talk to the PDP because this is where people were forbidden from contesting elections. In our party, the APC, no one is prevented from participating in the democratic process.

“For Bayelsa, we are going for the governorship election and we are confident that we shall win. We are all going to Bayelsa to campaign, we have a coherent message and we have a credible and competent messenger.

Oshiomhole said that in any electioneering campaign, that there are two important things. He noted that those two essential things are the quality of the message and that of the messenger stressing that the party was sure of victory.

The Edo governor was recently described as a drowning man by an ex-governor of the state, Chief Lucky Igbinedion for ordering a probe into his (Igbinedion’s) alleged money laundering during his tenure as the head of the state.