The Alex Otti campaign has decried plans by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Abia State to arrest all door-to-door volunteers soliciting for votes and support for the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) governorship flag bearer. The campaign organization wondered when it became a crime to ask for the personal details of prospective voters in a bid to forging a bond with them before elections.
Otti is riding the crest wave of massive goodwill in Abia State ahead of the polls and has been tipped to win the governorship race next month by a range of political analysts.
“In what we consider a really bad joke taken too far, the PDP run Abia State government has asked security agencies to arrest our door-to-door volunteers who have been embarking on a quite legitimate task of soliciting for votes from eligible voters in Abia State. The offence of the volunteers, according to a cerebrally challenged government, is that they “ask for personal details” of prospective voters during their door-to-door visits across the State. When has it become an offence to pay visits to people these days? Do we squeeze the details out of the respondents at gun point? Why are the PDP and its puppeteer of a candidate not embarking on door-to-door campaigns of their own?” a senior aide in the Otti campaign organization queried.
The aide also said the door-to-door volunteers deploy the personal information mined from prospective voters to keep up communication channels with them because it is the best way to run a people oriented campaign in a technologically savvy 21st century. “We are bent on running a grass-root oriented campaign, whether the PDP and its goons like it or not. Our candidate has established an emotional connection with the voting population in Abia State and that emotive DNA runs throughout the campaign structure.”
“Ndi Abia have warmed up to us on this account and tender their personal details without scruples because we have earned their trust in the course of time and because they see us as partners in the task of freeing Abia from the shackles of godfather leadership with its attendant poor governance insignia”, the statement read.
The campaign also advised the security agencies not to allow themselves to “become pawns in the chess game of the incumbent Governor and the cabal who have held Abia State by the jugular for eight years and who have stolen the State dry in the intervening period”.
“We expect our esteemed security personnel across Abia State to continue to remain on the side of the people, the law and justice at all times”, the statement concluded.
