Cross River Guber: APC, PDP Shop For Labour Party’s Votes In Final Push For Victory

The ruling All Progressives Congress, APC, and the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, are making frantic efforts to get the votes of the Labour Party as the push for victory in Saturday’s governorship election enters its final period.

Both parties are confident of victory and are shopping to harvest maximum votes from the Labour Party.

Although Peter Obi, the Presidential candidate of the Labour Party in the just concluded presidential election, had endorsed the PDP candidate, Sandy Onor, the APC believes that its strategic alliance from constituency to constituency would yield the desired result.

For instance, following the Supreme Court ruling which nullified its primary election into Yala 1 State Assembly, the APC has adopted the Labour Party candidate, Brian Odey, for the constituency in return for massive Labour party’s votes for the governorship.

Its Cross River State Chairman, Alphonsus Eba, who announced the decision said the endorsement of Odey is in line with “the political calculation and sportsmanship” to support the LP in the state.

He stressed that, “As a party, we are adopting the candidate of the Labour Party, Brian Odey in the Yala 1 state constituency election,” he said.

“We are in this alliance because we want supporters of the Labour Party to also support the candidate of the APC in the governorship election.”

Similar approach is being adopted across the state including where the Labour Party does not have a candidate for the state assembly or has weak candidates.

The strategic alliance is said to be working well for the APC in order to reverse its defeat in the presidential and national assembly elections.

Recall the Labour Party won the presidential election held on February 25 while Cross River State governor, Ben Ayade, was defeated in the race for the Cross River North Senate seat.

Also, the APC lost all the three Federal House of Representatives in the Cross River North senatorial district.

With the PDP governorship candidate coming from Cross River Central and his APC counterpart coming from the South, attention has shifted to Cross River North.

Following the defeats during the February 25 elections, the APC is not leaving anything to chance.

Coupled with the strategic alliance with some Labour Party candidates, it has also deployed top members of the party with the simple mandate of ‘operation deliver your polling unit’.

All elected and appointed members of the party, including appointees of government have the new mandate to return the party to victory from their polling units.

But the PDP, smarting from the endorsement of its candidate by Obi, believes the votes of the Labour Party can lead it to victory.

It also hopes that with its resounding victory in the Northern Senatorial District in the last election, it can harvest maximum votes in addition to the votes from the Central senatorial district to emerge victorious.

One of its top canvassers, Victor Achuta, told THE WHISTLER that “The PDP needs maximum votes from just two zones – Cross River North and Central.

“We believe Senator Jarigbe Agom, Godwin Offionor, Peter Akpanke and the Party chairman, Venatius Nkem can all win the North.

“Our candidate is from the Central so expect total votes there.

“Their candidate, Bassey Otu, is from the South so they can give him their votes. But that too is not all because areas like Bakassi and with the help of former governor, Donald Duke, we can get more than 30% of the votes there.

“I know they are working to reverse the last defeat but we will win,” he said.