The Labour Party (LP) governorship candidate in Plateau State, Mr. Patrick Dakum, has expressed optimism of winning the March 11 election.
Dakum said with the victory of his party’s presidential candidate, Peter Obi at the February 25 poll, he is confident of emerging as the Governor-elect of the State.
“The (presidential) poll showed that Plateau State people can decide the kind of leader that they want, the kind of leader they believe will steer the ship in a very difficult situation,” he said on Channels Television’s Sunrise Daily programme on Tuesday.
In the February 25 presidential election, Obi won Plateau State with 466,272 votes despite that the Director General of the All Progressives Congress (APC) Presidential Campaign Council, Simon Lalong is a two-term governor of State.
Obi was followed by Bola Tinubu of the APC who polled 307,195 votes and Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) who scored 243,808 votes. However, the electoral body declared Tinubu as the President-elect having polled the highest total votes nationwide.
Dakum said the people of Plateau and the people of Nigeria want a fresh air and that is why ‘Obidients’ as they are called, voted en masse for Obi.
He said, “For us in the Labour Party, we believe that the change Nigerians yearn for, while Peter Obi will be slugging it out at the court, that change can begin to manifest in the election and in the state.
“If you go and look at the micro-analysis of the votes, you can clearly see where people voted based on the person that they wanted and where people voted based on sentiments for a political party.
“The analysis we have done on the data showed that the votes that Peter Obi got were principally votes of people who wanted a change, not votes of people that necessarily belong to PDP or the APC.
“Those set of people and even more, have made their commitment to wanting to ensure that the change that they so desire at least at the state level, they implement. And so, we are confident based on the different blocs we believe contributed a lot.”
Dakum said majority of workers in the state are determined to ensure the victory of the Labour Party in the March 11 governorship election.