A chieftain of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Maj-Gen. Lawrence Anebi Onoja (rtd), has urged voters in Benue State to support the party’s governorship candidate, Emmanuel Jime, in the March 23, 2019, supplementary election. Onoja said that the victory of Jime at the polls would mean rapid development for the state.
He said that Benue State always belongs to the national government in history, and must be continued.
According to him, Benue State cannot afford to belong to the opposition party in the next four years. In his view, the current Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) government of Samuel Ortom has inflicted irredeemable hardships on the people and allowing him to win in the supplementary poll would spell doom for the state.
Onoja stated this when Ohimini Women League visited him in his Idekpa country home recently.
The former military governor of Plateau and Katsina States maintained that with on-going projects such as the Makurdi-Aliade-Otukpo federal highway by the Muhammadu Buhari government, it was wiser to vote an APC governor for the speedy development of Benue.
He said that workers and pensioners who were being owed salaries and pension by Ortom would be paid by Jime if he elected as the next governor of the state.
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Onoja noted that since the PDP government knows that most civil servants and pensioners voted for the Jime, leaving the state in the hands of Ortom would see many of them laid off and victimised, while more pensioners would die as witnessed in the last three and half years in the state.
He said that those promoting unnecessary sentiments that other governors in the past did two terms were economical with the truth and selfish and questioned if civil servants and pensioners were badly treated as the present state government.
He urged the APC to monitor the PDP rigging machinery during the supplementary poll and dismissed the so-called over 80,000 votes margin as a non-issue, stressing that most of the areas are APC stronghold under the leadership of Senator George Akume.
Earlier, the group applauded Onoja for delivering not only his Idekpa ward but the entire Ohimini local government area to the APC in the inconclusive election. The movement was led by Mrs. Alice Oche, its national coordinator.
Oche said that their visit was prompted by the aggressive campaign Onoja gave to the APC in his Idekpa ward where out of eight polling units, the APC won seven leaving only one to the PDP.
The group said that to cap it all, Ohimini council where Onoja hails from, comprising 10 wards, the APC won nine and attributed the success to the leadership quality of Onoja and a few committed party elders.
