By Tunde Olamilekan
The National Secretary of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Senator Ajibola Basiru, has dismissed opposition parties’ claim that last Saturday’s bye-election was marred by the late arrival of materials and voter apathy.
This was as the Osogbo-born politician said APC is the only party that truly prepared and mobilised for the elections.
The former Osun Central Senator stated this while appearing on TVC’s Beyond The Headlines programme.
According to the Osun State gubernatorial aspirant, the opposition parties blaming the Independent National Electoral Commission for their woes were doing so because they had nothing to say.
Basiru noted that politics is not played on social media but on the grassroots, adding that only the APC did its due diligence before the bye-elections.
He said, “The truth is that you cannot blame INEC for what they called a low voter turnout. The turnouts are a form of mobilisation by all political parties.
“A political party that does not even have agents in most of the polling units it contested is talking about low voter turnout. Do they have canvassers or mobilisers?
“The truth is that at APC, we mobilised and campaigned for that election. Within 72 hours of that election, myself and the National Chairman of the party, we were in Ogun and Edo states to campaign. I was personally in Kano to support the campaign of our party.
“Ask other parties what effort they made to mobilise and galvanise voters to even come out to vote for them in that election. It is not about just coming out to lampoon an institution that is improving gradually on electoral processes in Nigeria.
“The truth is that the only political party that is working to win an election, mobilising people at the grassroots, is the APC. Other political parties will rather consider themselves as political party on social media without any connection with the real people that will come out and vote.”
The APC National Secretary added that his party did not win in some constituencies, asking if the opposition will also blame the INEC for their win in those areas.
“APC did not win in Ibadan North Federal Constituency and Anambra South Senatorial District. So, how has the late arrival of election materials helped the APC in those places?
“In Kano, we had issues with security and intimidation of voters but yet INEC went ahead and declared NNPP the winner of that election.”
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