APC thriving on illegality – Falae

The national chairman of the Social Democratic Party (SDP), Chief Olu Falae, on Thursday blasted the governing All Progressives Congress (APC) for its penchant for illegality and urged Nigerians to boot out the party come 2019.

Falae stated this during the grand finale rally of the candidate of the SDP for the Lokoja/Kogi by-election, Ahmed Imam, held in Lokoja, the state capital.

Falae also condemned the declaration of the seat of the former speaker of the Kogi state House of Assembly vacant by the APC-controlled assembly for dumping the APC for SDP.

The former speaker recently defected to the SDP to contest the bye-election occasioned by the death of the former majority leader of the House of Representatives, Buba Jubril.

He urged the people of Lokoja in particular and Kogi, in general, to demonstrate their support for the former speaker by voting against the APC on Saturday.

Falae noted that Imam fulfilled the prescribed conditions that are spelt out in the constitution before defecting to another party.

“That is another evidence of illegality, arbitrariness and malice. The law says you can change party if your party is in crisis and factions have developed within the party.

"His party was APC but today we have APC and R-APC, two factions, the conditions for defection legitimately have been fulfilled.

"He exercised his right to leave a party in factions and joined SDP, so it is illegal, criminal and unconstitutional for the house of assembly to declare the seat vacant, we shall take them to court and the court will deal with them.

“I want to urge the people to turn to the SDP; that is the new party that all Nigerians are looking up to save them from corruption, incompetence and anarchy.

"A government ruled for 15 years, they messed up and we all clamoured for change in APC and they are far worse than PDP. So, we urge Nigerians to turn to SDP, a party that has a wonderful manifesto and leaders who are unimpeachable, so the people of Kogi should start on Saturday and the whole Nigerians will follow", he said.

Addressing the crowd after receiving the SDP flag, Ahmed Imam urged the electorate to give their supports to him and the SDP, promising not to let them down.

He advised the electorate not to allow anybody buy their conscience with money but should exercise their franchise freely.