The leadership of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Edo state chapter has fingered three top female and one male officials of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) who are alleged to be collaborating with the state government to offer two million naira bribe in nine local government areas of the state.
The party also alleged that the amount is meant to enable those listed alongside party supervisors to produce results in favour of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) during the governorship election holding in the state tomorrow, Wednesday.
However in swift reaction, Edo State Chairman of the APC, Hon Anslem Ojezua, described PDP allegation as a figment of its own imagination, adding that it is a clear sign that the PDP has lost the election.
Publicity Secretary of the PDP, Chris Nehikhare who raised the alarm at a news briefing a the party’s secretariat in Benin, specifically accused the Public Relations Officer of INEC in Edo state, Mrs. Pricilla Sule and one Hajia Amina Zakari, an INEC commissioner, of allegedly serving as fronts for the APC led government to distribute the said N2million to each of the supervisors in the unidentified local government areas.
Also fingered in the plot is the Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC) in Delta state, who the PDP said was allegedly coordinating for the commission’s national officials, one Amina Zakari and the Deputy Director (Operations) of the electoral umpire, one Mr. Ken.
Nehikhare warned: “if anybody tries to present that fake results from the nine local; governments which they have written, the two million they collected will be used for their burial. It is not a threat, it is a promise.
“Now, it has come to our attention that INEC and the state government have seriously compromised the election that is going to take place tomorrow (today). The staff of INEC that is involved in this compromise is spearheaded in Edo state is being coordinated by Mrs. Sule who is the PRO of INEC. I am calling her name so that you know exactly that I know what I am talking about. People involved in this conspiracy are people that are involved that leaked this to the PDP and they have told us to act very fast.
“I know a couple of days ago Sule make a remark that we should go aheaqd and campaign which we had been doing but now I have specific and credible information that Mrs. Sule is coordinating the comprise of supervisors for and on behalf of Edo state government. They have sent two million naira to supervisors in at least nine local governments of Edo state. It is under the control of the REC from Delta state and he is coordinating on behalf of the national commissioner, Amina Zakari.
“The Deputy Director (Operations) Mr. Ken is also involved in this conspiracy to subvert the will of people of Edo state. What they ahev done is that they have written results in the nine local governments on behalf of the APC, these results are being held by the supervisors from the collation officers at the points where they plan to fix these results at the local government level tomorrow after the elections are done.”
Efforts to get the comment of Mrs. Sule and the REC of INEC in the state, Mr. Sam Olumekun on the allegation failed as they refused to answer called to their GSM phone by our reporter yesterday.
And Ojezua reacted by saying: “I am the state chairman of APC, I have been in my home area for three days, campaigning from unit to unit, door to door. So what time will I have to go and talk about bribing INEC. If anything at all it is the PDP People that know the INEC people, after all most of these INEC officers were employed during the PDP government.
“Any serious minded party like our own, we have trained our agents and they are determined to be very vigilant. The truth is that all the plans PDP made to create havoc in Edo state have virtually failed. All the efforts they have made to manipulate the process have also failed. They can now see that there is nothing other than the true transparent process that will give us result in this election.” [myad]
