COMRADE Issa Aremu, the governorship candidate of Labour Party (LP) in Kwara says with sound ideology and peopls oriented programmes, his party remains the one to beat in the state’s governorship election.

In an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Ilorin, Aremu said that in spite of the razzmatazz of the two most visible political parties, labour party remained the people’s choice.

According to him, the party will emerge victorious in the March 9 governorship poll in Kwara

“In fact, in this state, there are only two parties, if you use the criteria of ideology, the labour party and others.

“We are the winner in this election, not because of our pocket, bill boards and posters, but because we have endeared ourselves to the hearts of our people.

“While others are erecting bill boards and displaying posters all over, we are doing heart to heart campaigns with our people and they resonated.

“In our campaign strategy, we put ourselves in same position with the electorate not as their lords, we came humbly to our people and they mobilise campaign fund and materials for us’’ he said.

Aremu said that his party had been real in its campaign strategy without deferring to “rented crowd’’ and he had been endorsed by the labour movement.

“I am the only candidate in the state that has a woman as my running mate. We put women as part of our campaign processes and when we are elected, women will be fully part of governance.

“We have assured the labour sector, which forms the greater percentage of Kwara population that we will pay living wage even more than the nationally approved minimum wage.

“We believe that the only way to improve Kwara economy is to improve on the purchasing power of workers.

“We have interacted with the informal sector, artisans, tailors and so on and they all promised to vote for us, so we are the party to beat.

“We have taken our campaign to the people living with disabilities, the traditional institutions, market men and women are fully in touch with us.

“I have been to stadium to unveil my vision particularly on sport development in Kwara,’’ he said.
Aremu said that the five Ps agenda of the labour party – People, Prosperity, Popular participation, Partnership and Peace would be implemented within the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) recently inaugurated by the United Nations.

He said the party’s ideology included participatory democracy, ideological socialism, humanism, mixed-economy, prosperity partnership between the public and the private sector and sustainable development.

On the crisis of leadership and polarisation that had rocked the party, Aremu said that the court had recognised the Alhaji Abdukadir Abdusalam led leadership and it was the faction known to law as labour party.

Aremu said though, the labour party had no Presidential candidate, however, based on the party’s ideology of partnership, members resolved to work with a party or a candidate that shared the same ideology.

He said the Labour Party unanimously endorsed President Muhammadu Buhari, the candidate of All Progressives Congress (APC) because his programmes and policies in the past three and half years were similar to theirs.

“We have examined all the candidates and see that the only one we can partner with is the presidential candidate of the APC, President Muhammadu Buhari

“He has shown that he is labour friendly. The labour requested improved minimum wage, he set up presidential committee in spite of protest by governors and it was approved

“Our manifesto is also opposed to corruption because money stolen cannot be used to develop the country and Buhari is the only candidate that has shown zero tolerance for corruption.

“Even on the eve of the election and at the risk of his stance being used against him, he still maintains that if he catches anyone who abuses public trust he will get him or her jailed.

“The other candidate, on the other hand said he will enrich his friends and he sees nothing wrong with it

“We are also supporting Buhari because of his commitment to developing agriculture and his massive investment in the nation’s staple, rice,’’ he said

Aremu added that Buhari also brought integrity to political campaign generally by not allowing it to be hijacked by money bags and foreign funding as it was in the past elections. (NAN)

– Feb. 19, 2019 @ 9:59 GMT |