Edo 2016: PDP says APC wants to rig election

Ahead of September 10, Edo state governorship election, Pastor Osagie Ize-Iyamu Campaign Organisation, has warned against rigging, saying it was prepared to defend its votes by all means.

It advised that those plotting and boasting to use the security agencies and some agents of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to rig the election should do a rethink as Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) members, across the wards are prepared and ready to defend their votes by ‘any means necessary.’

Ize-Iyamu Campaign Organisation said this while responding to a meeting held by the All Progressives Congress (APC) leaders, with their Unit Heads during the weekend at former Leventis House, Sokponba Road, Benin City.

It alleged that the APC had instructed the Unit Heads to disrupt any polling unit where the PDP candidate wins during voting and counting of ballots papers.

Part of the statement reads, “We have been informed by an insider at the meeting that APC leaders further warned their members that the election results must not be allowed to be declared by INEC Presiding Officers should PDP wins in any unit in the state.

‘’The insider further informed us that APC had finally given up any hope of winning the election, and they are now planning crude measures to rig the election, including making their members as INEC ad-hoc staff members.”

Read also: Edo PDP wants EFCC to prosecute Oshiomhole

The campaign organisation then said that if indeed the APC actually had such evil intentions, “they have failed,
because, our members have been instructed to defend their votes by all means necessary.’’

It also claimed that huge sums of money had been deployed to induce APC members in the state in order to prevail on them to help in their evil plot, adding that the Permanent Voters Cards (PVCs), of the electorate in various wards
across the state, “are being collected by APC leaders daily, and in some cases the serial numbers copied out for cloning.”

Pastor Osagie Ize-Iyamu Organisation, then called on President Muhammadu Buhari, the international community, non-governmental organisations and other well-meaning Nigerians to prevail on INEC and security agencies to avoid any
act that is capable of causing violence and plunging the state into unmanageable crisis.

‘’Election is not a do or die affair; we must allow the will of the Edo people to prevail in the election,” it said.

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