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From Emmanuel Adeyemi, Lokoja
The Kogi State Chairman of the Labour Party, Suleiman Abdul Ahmed, has said it was painful that the state government at the eleventh hour Monday denied the party the venue for its mega rally scheduled to hold Tuesday with its presidential candidate, Mr Peter Obi.
Addressing reporters in his office on Monday, the state chairman of the party expressed surprise that in spite of going through due process to obtain a permit for the rally which was billed to take place at the Confluence Stadium, Lokoja the state government still denied them access to the venue
According to him, the state government first raised the fees for the venue from #250,000 to #500,000 and then to N1,000,000 but he said the party was still willing to pay only for them to increase it again to N1.5 million.
“Even, at that outrageous rate, we told them we were still determined to pay, and when we got there by Monday for the payment, the handlers of the stadium rejected our money that they were acting from ‘order from above’ and chased us away from the place”
Continuing, he said: “If the PDP treated them like this in 2015, I don’t think they will get the opportunity to campaign for them to be elected, it is crystal clear that they are afraid of the rising popularity of Labour Party, they want to do everything to silence us but we can never be deterred
“Part of their ploy to discourage the opposition is the outrageous charges of N37 million they asked us to pay just to erect billboards. And they have destroyed all our billboards across the 21 local government areas that we erected even before the order
“But all these will not deter us, we remain unmoved and unbowed and we have resolved to host our presidential candidate tomorrow even if it is in the forest, the rally will surely hold, we remain peaceful and Obidient,” he added.
