The candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party in the 2023 Kogi State governorship election, Senator Dino Malaye, has reacted to reports that he collected N3 billion from former Vice President Atiku Abubakar and Chairman of Dangote Group, Aliko Dangote, for the poll.
He spoke at a dinner organised in his honour by members of his campaign organisation in Abuja on Thursday.
The former Senator said the report was the handiwork of his detractors, who were bent on derailing his campaign.
While Abubakar, who was the candidate of the PDP in the 2023 presidential election, reportedly gave him N1 billion, Dangote allegedly shelled out N2 billion.
Melaye said: “One of the lessons is that the East (Kogi East Senatorial District) now knows more than ever before that they cannot become governor alone.
“You will have to collaborate with another zone to become governor.
“The second lesson is also for those of us from the West.
“That next time we should listen to the words of wisdom from our elders and not from commercialised characters who because of their individual and selfish interests created problems for us.
“Because at the end of the day, what our elders have been saying that this will be the worst (election) for us is what eventually happened.
“We went through these elections, irrespective of the outcome, irrespective of betrayals, and so many things. There’s a reason to thank God and thank everyone, particularly our leaders and I especially appreciate General Tunde Ogbeha (retd).
“Throughout the campaign, not once did we have any gunshot at us.
“Not even once.
“We were moving around the state throughout the dead nights.
“In fact, we even went to Bassa.
“We were driving through that very lonely road on unholy hours of the night.
“We got to Anyigba at about hours like 12 midnight or 1am and the kind of stories of gunshots, there were no cases of gunshots at us or the kind of killings like what we were told when the SDP visited any other place in the East.
“We didn’t experience any of such, we didn’t lose any soul.
“This, we are grateful to God.
“But when it got to be proper elections, there was no election alongside following the tenets and doctrines of democracy were not respected.
“Again, if people have faith in us, it will not be the way it is, especially those of us from the western flank.
“There was this very false message that some leaders from the West that one of my leaders said that I wanted to create confusion.
“Yet some leaders insisted and said this is what they were going to do.
“Everybody has been served breakfast.
“I want to believe that by the grace of God, we have learnt a lot of lessons from this election.
“We gave Kogi the type of campaign they have never seen.
“That’s the truth.
“We had a sophisticated campaign.
“We had a policy document that took about three months to put together and we had the message and we went round.
“And by the grace of God, we cannot also say we lost because there was no election.
“By the time we do the statistics, what we spent in this election has never been spent by PDP in the history of Kogi State.
“We know.
“I mean, we know that.
“So, we need not get disillusioned.
“It’s not to get disenchanted.
“It’s not to get discouraged.
“It’s for us to hold ourselves together as a political family and say what we lost on the streets, we will regain at the roundabout.
“And this election also taught a lot of lessons.” [Eagle Online]
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