Ahead of the September 21 governorship election in Edo State, the Labour Party, LP, yesterday evening, inaugurated its governorship campaign council, where the state Chairman of the party, Kelly Ogbaloi, disclosed that there are over 30 strategic committees mandated to work in collaboration with the council, led by Bishop Sam Omede.

Ogbaloi, expressed optimism that the party would win the governorship election because the people now lack confidence in the two major parties – the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, and the All Progressives Congress, APC that have governed the state since 1999.

Ogbaloi said the party would explore all available opportunities to ensure all the stakeholders in the political space of Edo State are galvanized to support and cast their votes for the LP Governorship Candidate, Mr Olumide Akpata and his running mate, Yusuf Asamah Kadiri, SAN.

Ogbaloi who said there is only one governorship candidate of the party, urged members of the public to disregard any other information concerning LP’s standard bearer, adding that apart from the state campaign council, there are senatorial, local government and ward coordinators to help market and project Akpata across all the nooks and crannies of the 18 local government areas, three senatorial districts, nine Federal constituencies and 192 wards.

We’ll defend our votes

He said: “We want to assure you that Olumide Akpata is poised to change the living standard of every Edo man for the better. We cannot waste the efforts of our candidate, and allow PDP or APC to continue in Osadebey Avenue.

It is in that respect that I solicit with you that we cannot afford to begin to fight ourselves inside. Deploy the energy outside and garner more members for our party and ensure that our votes are defended most particularly. The ill we suffered, especially in the last election, was that our votes were stolen. Let’s defend our votes first. We have resolved that no single vote will leave us, we must protect our votes. First thing is that we will be able to cooperate, listen to ourselves and work together, so that we can achieve our goals.”

Victory shall be ours — Omede

On his part, the Director General of the campaign council, Sam Omede said the council has a big task ahead of it but that with God all things would be easy for it.

He said the council would coordinate and work with all the committees to go around the state to woo more eligible voters to the party.

“We are going to send people out there to deliver our message. The message is that we want to change the landlord of Dennis Osadebay Avenue. We have had APC and PDP landlords in Edo State Government House, but let us now try Labour Party landlords and see the difference.

“Our logo speaks for us that we care about the people. Our people are suffering; you can see life is more difficult now in Nigeria. The artisans, the common man, belong to Labour. And we want to galvanize all these groups to go for the election. The victory shall be ours,” he stated.

In an interview, Akpata, who expressed confidence in the calibre of members of the campaign council, noted that the party has chosen the right people to lead it to Dennis Osadebey Avenue.

“If you listen to the names of those mentioned, they are an array of very faithful and loyal party men and women and most of them are very experienced. We also have come up with the innovation of deputy directors-general for each zone. We have picked three distinguished gentlemen to run each of the zones as deputy directors-general to assist Reverend Sam Omede as our director-general.

“We also have our woman leader as the chairperson of the women’s mobilization committee. So, you can understand why I am beaming with confidence and excitement.

“These are just a few of the committees we have mentioned. We also have coordinators for all the 18 local government areas. Our campaigns would be present in all our local governments.

“So, I am confident, hopeful and I am sure of victory come September 21, governorship election,” he said. (Vanguard)