Media adviser to Patrick Sunday Dakum, the governorship candidate of the Labour Party (LP) in Plateau State, Shabul Mazadu, has said that no amount of campaign calumny against the candidate will stop him from the race.
Speaking with BusinessDay over an alleged campaign of calumny against Dakum by a rival party, Mazadu said that the Labour Party candidate’s popularity and acceptability in the state have gone beyond stoppage.
“Labour Party has no thugs. Dakum has no record of thuggery like others. There is no amount of calumny that will stop Dakum and the Labour Party, Dati can only howl, wail and bray, but judgment is sure at the polls.
“It was funny reading bogus praise of Governor Simon Lalong and vituperations against the venerable Plateau State Labour Party governorship candidate, Patrick Sunday Dakum, by the Chief of Staff to the Director General, Tinubu/Shettima Campaign organisation, Yakubu Dati.
“Dati in an interview with an online paper attempted to cover up for the totally failed leadership of Governor Simon Lalong, and took a swipe at Dakum whose acceptability is skyrocketing at supersonic speed sweeping the entire 17 local government areas of the state, with lies and malicious postulation to whip up sympathy for Lalong whose political ambition is already dancing on the graveyard of extinction waiting for the final whistle at the 2023 general election to be blown.
“Dati, who is an ardent user of political thugs fully backed by Lalong, thinks everyone is like them that’s why he accused Dr Dakum and the Labour Party of using thugs in Shendam on Saturday 31st December 2022 during Bit Goemai, the Goemai annually festival.
“In his interview on the online paper, they were confused and claimed that Dakum was a Senatorial candidate, which is not true. Dakum has no record of ever using thugs, but Lalong and Dati.
“It was the fanatical members of the All Progressives Congress, APC, at the Bit Goemai who was vexed that so many of their members joined the Labour Party supporters in chanting Sai Dakum that almost invaded the venue of the event.
“The LP supporters were only chanting ‘Sai Dakum and Sai Labour Party.’ Dakum showed displeasure seeing the mood and disappointment in the faces of Rt. Hon. Yusuf Gagdi, chairman of the occasion and governor Lalong, seeing that he stole the day and they were heartbroken.
“This prompted him to publicly apologise and demonstrated love by going all out to embrace and exchange banters with the APC Governorship candidate.”
According to him, “The crowd that graced Dakum’s campaign flag-off in Langtang North and that of Bankilong and Kunkyam in Kanam Local Government Area on Boxing Day, 2022, shattered the APC whose attempts to use the erstwhile Labour Party governorship candidate, Yohana Margif, to stop Dakum met its waterloo at the Federal High Court, Jos.
“Talking of peace, Peter Tosh said, ‘There will be no peace until the man gets equal rights and justice.’And in the absence of equal rights and justice, one side has to play the fool for peace to reign, and that’s the exact thing that Plateau did for peace to reign and not Lalong’s finesse or prowess.”
