Liyel Imoke, former governor of Cross River State, has said that Atiku Abubakar/Ifeanyi Okowa’s presidency is the only viable option for Nigeria in the 2023 presidential election.
Atiku, Nigeria’s former vice president (1999-2003) is the People’s Democratic Party’s (PDP) presidential candidate on February 25.
Imoke, a leader of the PDP in Cross River, along with other chieftains of the party, including Gershom Bassey, state chairman, PDP-Presidential Campaign Council (PCC), spoke during a town hall meeting in Akamkpa and Biase LGAs to sensitise the general populace on the need to believe in and vote the Atiku/Okowa ticket and the PDP to correct the ‘eight disastrous years of the APC that has left the citizenry impoverished and despondent.
Imoke also implored the people to shun the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) because it has failed the people woefully at the federal and state levels.
Imoke cautioned the people against a resort to ethnic sentiments in their voting decisions, declaring that votes wasted on the Labour Party (LP) and other mushroom parties would amount to conferring advantage on the rudderless APC and reinforcing failure.
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Also speaking, Gershom Bassey, senator representing Cross River South in the National Assembly, said as a representative of the people, he had seen it all in terms of the negative change the APC had brought upon the country for nearly eight years now. He recalled the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) release which disclosed that 133 million Nigerians are multi-dimensionally poor while 63 percent of Nigerians were poor because of a lack of access to healthcare, education, good living standards, employment and security. He said voting PDP will right those wrongs.
The PDP national women leader, Stella Effa-Attoe pleaded with the people never to accept nor vote for any party except PDP. The high point of the town hall meetings was a reception for defectors led by a leader, Comrade Godwin Urom Ibe, popularly known as Sir Bello (001) and other APC members.
In his remarks, Gershom Bassey, told a crowd of supporters that the APC at the national level has failed, stating that the debt the present administration of Buhari has incurred in trillions of dollars, revealing that the APC administration has resorted to taxing the people on everything in order to meet up with their cost of running the government.
He said the Atiku government has come up with a blueprint that will tackle this government, the-5 Point Agenda. Ntufam Ekpo Okon and Ntufam Etta Mbora, also said if there was any chance of redeeming the present situation, PDP should be voted back to power at all levels.
