The Peoples
Democratic Party has accused the All Progressives Congress of conniving with
some officials of the Independent National Electoral Commission officials to
disenfranchise voters by deleting their names from voter registers especially
in the opposition party’s strongholds.
The Chairman
of the PDP in Osun State, Mr. Soji Adagunodo, said this at a press conference
he and other leaders of the party addressed in Osogbo on Tuesday ahead of the
by-election for Osun West Senatorial District scheduled for July 8.
Punch reported that, He also
alleged that the ruling party, in connivance with some electoral officers had
perfected plans to send wrong electoral materials to polling units in areas
where the PDP was popular just to delay the commencement of voting and to
manipulate the process in favour of the candidate of the APC, Mudasiru Hussain.
The
opposition party also claimed that the APC had perfected plans to cause
violence in Ede and some other local government areas on election day in order ensure cancellation of the result.
“The APC
election strategy committee is conniving with certain elements in INEC to
recruit OYES cadets and other party sympathisers as presiding officers and
polling clerks. Part of the plans is to provide fake NYSC uniforms and
distribute same to these elements in order to make them carry out this criminal
plan.
“There are
also plans by the APC to ensure that INEC allocate non-functioning card readers
to areas considered as strongholds of the PDP. This, in their thinking, would
slow down accreditation of voters and get voters discouraged.
“We have
credible information about the plans of the APC and the state government to
arrange the kidnap and or arrest of leaders of the PDP in certain local
government areas on the eve of the July 8th by-election.
“As we speak,
certain chieftains of the APC have compiled names of their party members and
sympathisers to be accredited by INEC as election observers and monitors.
“You will
recall that 181 of these same elements from Osun State were arrested somewhere
in Imo State in 2013, while travelling as fake observers for the Anambra
governorship election.”
Adagunodo
also alleged that the APC was pushing for a shift in the date of the election
because it had become obvious that its candidate was not popular among the electorate
and they needed more time to repackage him.
He advised
INEC not to yield to the pressure the APC was allegedly mounting on it to shift
the date by three weeks, in order for it not to appear as a puppet of the
ruling party.
Adagunodo
said, “ At the stakeholders’ meeting we had with INEC in this state, we suggested that the election should hold on
22nd of July but out of 24 political
parties that attended that meeting, 22 parties agreed that it should hold on 22nd of July with the exception of
the APC and one other party that suggested that the election should hold on the
8th.
“The
Independent National Electoral Commission has been under immense pressure from
the APC leadership to shift the date of
the forthcoming by-election by three weeks. We hereby advise INEC to refuse this request as doing so will
compromise its integrity and cast a great doubt on its independence as an
electoral umpire.”
But the
Director of Publicity, Research and Strategy of the APC in Osun State, Mr.
Kunle Oyatomi, described the allegations against the ruling party as baseless
and product of ‘sick mentality.’
Oyatomi said
the PDP should substantiate all its claims with evidence otherwise the party
leaders should be arrested and prosecuted by the police.
He said, “We
challenge the PDP to go further and authenticate the so-called allegations and
identify the so-called leaders of the APC with all the technical, electronic and forensic evidence necessary to
prove the allegations.
“We also
call on the security agents to invite the PDP leaders to convince them of all
the allegations, otherwise they should be prosecuted. The APC believes that
this allegation of rigging is the product of sick mentality of the Osun PDP and
its supporters, who are psychologically tormented by the obsession to win Osun
West Senatorial seat by any concoctive and demonic means.
“We declare
that the APC can never descend to the criminality of accessing electoral
materials let alone of planning to rig
the forthcoming election.
“We are
therefore alerting all good people of the state of Osun to discountenance the
stupid allegations by the PDP who could not do anything to the constant defeats
they have suffered in the hands of APC since 2011.”
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