By Richard Elesho
The Kogi chapter of the African Democratic Congress, ADC, has denied claims that it has collapsed its structure into another party ahead of the state November 11 governorship election.
Kogi State party chairman, Adaji John, made the clarification in a statement on Sunday.
He was reacting to reports that the Ida Local Government Chairman of the ADC Adejo Ameadaji had dumped the party and fused its structure into that of Dino Melaye, candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, in the governorship election.
He said the ADC candidate, Leke Abejide, remains the front runner in the race to Lugard House and that Melaye’s handlers may have deliberately spread falsehood or been scammed.
“For a start, the name of the African Democratic Congress Chairman for Idah council area is Adejo Ameadaji from Igalogba ward. Definitely, if it has been true that anybody visited or received Dino, it’s to scam him – and they succeeded.
“This development is purely fake and a move to extort Dino. The face showing in the video is not an ADC party member, in fact he is an Ibaji man to the best of our knowledge and not a member of our party.
Those faceless persons led by the ghost Adejoh Haruna whom the camera intentionally didn’t captured must have played on the low intelligence of Melaye or to pay him back in his own coins – because it is in public domain that Melaye is a scammer and mentor of scammers. This is purely a case of ‘Scamming the Scammer’.
The press statement and the 40-second video have effectively proven that Melaye is a purveyor of falsehoods. And we are worried that Mr. Melaye is already threading the pact of APC and Yahaya Bello, who have been churning out media reports of receiving a series of fake decampees.
“Unlike the governor who managed to back his kangaroo decamping stories with some pictures, Dino Melaye failed to show any – this is the new low of peddling fake news that the PDP candidate has been associated with for a long time, just to confuse the people of the state of phyric relevance.
‘The crude’ falsehood from Dino Melaye would have been wished away save for the fact that innocent electorates may be confused about the stand of the ADC in the November 11 Governorship election. And for the sake of the naive populace, we ask them to disregard the purported news.
“We want to emphasize that no single member of the ADC in Idah has decamped or defected to the PDP, least of all collapsing any structure for Melaye. For emphasis, the name of the Idah ADC chairman is Adejo Ameadaji and not the ghost Adejoh Haruna. The State Chairman of ADC, Mr. John Adaji can be contacted in case of any doubt by the media members or the innocent populace.
“The fictitious name must have played a fast one on Dino. We have no sympathy for him that he was scammed. Our concern is about our teeming supporters and innocent citizens not to fall prey of the quickest celebration of falsehoods by Dino Melaye.
“We challenge the Ghost Chairman and his Buy-in Melaye to produce those ADC materials so that law enforcement agencies can do their job properly.
“Our good people of Kogi State, kindly ignore these desperate falsehoods. ADC is still in course to liberate our state from satanic stronghold.
“Our candidate, Hon. Leke Abejide still remains the leading governorship candidate in Kogi State, and he is poised to liberate the state.
