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Tag: Publicity Secretary

  • PDP are jesters, says Ondo APC

    THE All Progressives Congres (APC) in Ondo State has described the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) as desperate to win the elections. It, however, said vituperations and vain grandstanding will not win any election for the party.

    A statement by the Publicity Secretary, Alex Kalejaye, said: “The APC is worried that while the postponement avail political parties the opportunity to refine their campaigns, the PDP wailers had been attacking the well-cultured and disciplined APC and its leaders.

    “We note that while they keep harping on the so-called “bad eggs” from their party to the APC, they quickly forget that majority of “the rotten eggs” have since returned to the PDP, and are the leading lights in the party as at today.

    “The APC believes that it takes jesters to either destroy membership cards or describe the umbrella in unprintable names in a moment, but queue to be accommodated under the same umbrella in another breath.

    “We made bold to say that the crude agitators in the PDP in Ondo State are disconnected from reality and are swimming in delusions. The disabled party does not have the political strength to garner 20 per cent of the votes in Ondo State on Saturday.

    “The APC appeals to its adherents to ignore provocative actions and utterances from degraded party, but be focused on electoral victory during the elections.

    “We assure the people that neither President Muhammadu Buhari nor Arakurin Oluwarotimi Akeredolu will ever contemplate mismanaging your resources, rather they will utilise same for the benefits of all.”

  • Jonathan urges PDP members to elect better chairman, publicity secretary

    Jonathan urges PDP members to elect better chairman, publicity secretary

    Former President Goodluck Jonathan has advised Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) members not to make the mistake of electing wrong National Working Committee (NWC) members at the December convention.

    Jonathan spoke when he received an aspirant for the party’s national chairmanship position, Chief Raymond Dokpesi, in his residence in Abuja yesterday.

    He cautioned that the party could not afford to make mistake in choosing its next national chairman and publicity secretary, describing them as “very delicate positions”.

    “This time around, we need a very courageous and vocal person to be the chairman.

    “There are two positions that we must not make mistake on – the positions of the national chairman and that of the national publicity secretary, because I have worn the shoes before and I know where it pinches.

    “If we make a mistake as a party and elect wrong chairman and publicity secretary, we are finished,” Jonathan said.

    He said PDP, at this moment, needed courageous chairman, who in the face of persecution, would remain courageous to protect the party’s interest and defend democracy.

    “We need very competent person and a team player, somebody who will not negotiate to get money from the aspirants to make them candidates.

    “If you do that, you have destroyed the party because a party must come up with programmes and policies that will elect the best of the best.

    “If you present the best material, the chances of your winning election are stronger than when you present a wrong material.

    “This is key so that by 2019, when we go for the general elections, PDP will have majority in the states and national assemblies and of course, PDP must win the presidency,” he said.

    Jonathan, who said that the December convention would be keenly contested, urged chairmanship aspirants to see the exercise as a family affair.

    He commended the Senator Ahmed Makarfi-led National Caretaker Committee of the party, saying that they had done very well, especially during the period of crisis in the party.

    Jonathan prayed for Dokpesi in his aspiration to become PDP chairman and described him as “a member who has done well for the party”.

    Dokpesi urged Jonathan to ensure that the PDP came out of the December convention stronger and united.

    He hailed  the former president’s resilience and efforts in ensuring that the party’s leadership crisis was resolved.

     

  • APC, PDP trade words as WAEC withholds Bayelsa’s results

    APC, PDP trade words as WAEC withholds Bayelsa’s results

    The Bayelsa State chapter of the All Progressives Congress (APC), on Tuesday, lamented that the West African Examination Council (WAEC) has withheld the results of the state’s indigenous candidates.

    The party said the examination body took the action following the inability of the state government led by Mr. Seriake Dickson, to pay the required fees of the candidates.

    But the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) fired back describing the position of the APC as a mischievous and total display of ignorance.

    APC in a statement signed by its Publicity Secretary, Mr. Panebi Fortune, regretted that under Dickson a generation of youths was on the verge of being wasted with the seizure of the results.

    “WAEC had refused to release the results over unpaid debts owed it by the Bayelsa state government. By implication, pupils who made respective cut-off marks in the last Unified Tertiary and Matriculation Examination (UTME) might forfeit their admissions”, the party said.

    The party berated Dickson, accusing him of deliberately scuttling the destinies of bright children who are leaders of tomorrow.

    APC said: ”While the situation of the non-payment of teachers’ salaries in Bayelsa continues to be an embarrassment to all and sundry even as the governor’s deliberate impoverishment of public servants has now become an ego issue on his part, a far more dangerous twist is looming in the education sector in Bayelsa state.

    “This is the seizure of the results of secondary school pupils by WAEC over the state government’s refusal to pay statutory dues.

    “This is a brazen act, the height of irresponsibility on the part of a government. To say the least, Governor Dickson is deliberately wasting away a generation of tomorrow’s leaders due to his inaction in this regard.

    “While we call on well meaning individuals to prevail on the governor, we sympathize with the parents of the pupils for this pain, an ordeal not worth it for whatever reason.

    “To the affected pupils, while we pray for a divine intervention in this regards, we share in your distress, despair, and disappointment”.

    ‎The party also noted that public primary and secondary schools in Bayelsa had yet to resume for the 2016/2017 session because of the failure of the state government to settle the seven-month salary arrears it owed teachers.

    But the PDP in a statement signed by its state Chairman, Mr. Moses Cleopas, said the allegation was a deliberate deceit to score cheap political points.

    Cleopas said the APC lacked moral justification to criticise the Dickson’s administration, because “what Bayelsa State is going through is as a result of the misrule by the APC-led government at the centre.”

    He said the misrule of APC “has completely ruined the nation’s economy, through its inability to initiate policies to reinvigorate the economy.”

    According to him, the situation in Bayelsa State was made worse by the financial recklessness and huge debt burden left behind by the immediate past administration in the state, which was under the leadership of Chief Timipre Sylva.

    He said that the PDP administration had spent N100bn to service the bond liability it inherited from that administration.

    Cleopas said that despite the huge debt burden it inherited from Sylva’s administration, the PDP government under Dickson had through careful application of the scarce resources at its disposal, kept the machinery of the government running.

    He said the people of the state including the parents of the affected candidates understood the level of wastage in the Chief Sylva years.

    He called on the APC leadership at the state and federal levels to apologise to Bayelsans and Nigerians for subjecting the people to untold hardship.

    According to him, the “Dickson-led administration will not allow itself to be distracted by charlatans, who have proved time and again, that they do not have anything positive to offer the people of the state”.

  • Ojomu joins race for PDP publicity secretary

    A former Deputy National Publicity Secretary of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Bode Ojomu has joined the race for the party’s National Publicity Secretary at the National Convention billed for August 17, at Port Harcourt, the Rivers state capital

    Ojomu, who hails from Irepodun Local Government area of Kwara State, North Central, Nigeria said he’s going into the race to enhance the rebuilding of the party and return it to the people.

    According to Ayodele Samuel of the Bode Ojomu campaign committee, the promised to impactfully mobilize Nigerians through all forms of media to return PDP to power in 2019, rallying all media professionals in the party together.

    It will be recalled that the PDP had earlier zoned the position to the North Central geo political zone of the country.

    Ojomu had been a tested student activist at national level before his admission into the University of lbadan, having participated actively in NANS as Speaker of Oyo State College of Arts and Science, Ile-Ife.

    He holds a Masters Degree in International Relations and Strategic Studies and B.A. Hons in language and Communication Arts and his a member of Advertising Practitioners Council of Nigeria (APCON) and Nigerian Institute of Public Relations (NIPR).

    During the tenure of Chief Barrabas Gemade as National Chairman, Bode was appointed as a Member of the PDP National Committee on Media and Publicity to formulate a Media Policy for the Party.

    He was the Director, Media and Publicity, MANDATE 2003 – the Governorship Campaign Organization of  Dr. Bukola Saraki in Kwara State.

    In 2004-2005, he served with both Chief Audu Ogbeh and Dr. Amadu Ali as Deputy National Publicity Secretary and Acting National Publicity Secretary for 3 months.

    During his tenure, he participated as Member of so many important Committees including the Governor Joshua Dariye Investigation Panel under the Chairmanship of Governor Donald Duke and functions very effectively with the several Organs of the Party.

  • Jonathan, PDP underdeveloped Bayelsa – APC

    Jonathan, PDP underdeveloped Bayelsa – APC

    The Bayelsa State chapter of the All Progressives Congress (APC), on Tuesday, challenged the state Governor, Mr. Seriake Dickson, to show the people of the state the federal presence Bayelsa  has attracted throughout the 16 years of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) government and six years of former President Goodluck Jonathan’s administration.

    The party said Jonathan, Dickson and his party have underdeveloped the state and squandered golden opportunities to attract development to Bayelsa.

    The party was reacting to a statement by Dickson that leaders of the APC should use their contacts and connections to attract federal presence to the state.

    But APC in a statement signed by its Publicity Secretary, Mr. Panebi Fortune described the governor’s remarks as “mischievous and loose”.

    The statement described the immediate past president and his party, the PDP as liabilities to the people of the state.

    APC said: ”Our attention was today drawn to a mischievous and loose statement credited to the Bayelsa state governor, Henry Seriake Dickson, apparently in clear exhibition of arrogance and shallowness that APC leaders from Bayelsa state were yet to attract development to the state.

    ”From the statement, it was clear that the governor was either being misled by his own imagination or ‎was merely merely expressing another misguided view of our party, the APC.

    ”In our view, the statement was reckless even as it was a shameless show of brazen arrogance by a man whose party,the PDP had an ample opportunity to develop Bayelsa state that looked the other way.

    ”Does it not show much of political liability that while Jonathan,a son of Bayelsa state held sway for six years, the state is yet to take off on? What template of development did the former president lay before he was voted out of office? For us in the APC and indeed the generality of Bayelsans, both Jonathan and his party, the PDP were liabilities than they were assets to the people of the state. They underdeveloped Bayelsa state.”

    It added: ”May we use this medium to remind Governor Dickson that rather than chasing shadows and engaging in blackmail, he should consider the plight of Bayelsa workers and pay their salaries. The level of hunger, despair and insecurity occasioned by poverty we thought,could ‎be of paramount interest to him.

    ”It is a shame that despite the God-given opportunity, Jonathan and his party decided to impoverish the people of Bayelsa state just as Governor Dickson, like an emperor, has taken solace in a conquest-like squeeze of the people.

    ”We use this medium to advise Governor Dickson to face governance during this period of judicial reprieve as the days of justice are not too far away. It can only be preposterous that development which had eluded our dear state over the years under a PDP national government can be hurriedly canvassed to wrestled to Bayelsa within 15 months of President Muhammadu Buhari administration.

    ”For our teeming supporters, we enjoin you to remain steadfast and ignore provocative moves orchestrated by the state government and its agents to trigger unease. We will win at the end of the battle.”