News Editor
By David Odama
The Nasarawa State governor, Eng. Abdullahi Sule has declared that his administration will not take anything for granted ahead of the November 2nd local government elections so that candidates of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) can sweep all the Chairman, Councillor seat across all the 13 local government areas.
Governor Sule made the declaration while presenting nomination forms to the chairmanship candidates of the party at Government House in Lafia.
Governor Sule said, APC will work hard to win the coming elections, not minding the fact that APC is the party in power.
“I don’t take things for granted. We are going to work hard to win this election so that we don’t relent because we are the government in power, it is going to be similar to other places and we are just going to declare winners. We are going to work hard. We are going to campaign. We are going to go places and ensure that people show us love,” Sule declared.
“The focus of my administration now is to win the November 2 elections. We are happy that today we have handed over your forms you to go and fill. By the grace of God, that is the same way NASIEC will hand over your certificates to you,” he added.
Governor Sule explained that the APC is determined to win by fielding the best candidates in the election, stressing that the party is going into the election with the same spirit it undertook the nomination of candidates through the consensus arrangement.
“We are not approaching the election with over confidence that we have won, we are approaching the election that we are going to do our best and win the election. I want you to look at it that way and to work hard,” he stated.
While calling on the candidates to continue with their vigorous campaigns across units and wards of their local government areas, he assured the candidates and the party that he will personally attend the three zonal rallies in Keffi, Akwanga and Lafia.
“The Chairman has just announced that because of the limited period, we expect you to carry on with your unit to unit, ward to ward campaigns. It is not going to be possible for all of us to follow you to some of those campaigns but we intend and I plan to be at all the three zonal rallies that we are going to have.
“We are doing this in order to show the world that our elections are not going to be just sitting down in the office and just writing down results. We are going to put all seriousness into it and we are going to work hard and ensure that we carry out elections,” he said.
The Governor expressed confidence that with the calibre of persons that emerged as candidates of the party, the local government system will witness tremendous improvement in terms of efficient management of resources.
He pointed out that unlike what obtains elsewhere, his administration decided to allow the candidates of the APC to emerge through a process initiated by the party towards making sure that elected chairmen on the platform of the party remain completely loyal to the APC.
“I have always mentioned loyalty to the party to be very, very key to what is happening. This time around, we have refused for stakeholders to sponsor anybody. We wanted you to come through the process of the party. That way your absolute loyalty is to the party. Disloyalty will not be tolerated,” he said.
He expressed satisfaction with the smooth outcome of the party primaries, noting however that it is always expected that in a keenly contested election like that of the local government there is bound to be grudges.
“I congratulate you the party because you have been so busy the last few days and it has been a herculean task. I have never known that local government elections are more difficult than other elections until now. I am happy that we have had smooth primaries. The matter of grudges are normal. Because in an election such as this, if it was direct or indirect, it would have been worst than what you are getting. I’m happy that we selected the idea of consensus,” he added.
