The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), on Wednesday, declared its readiness for Saturday’s governorship election in Edo State. PDP urged voters in the state to vote and stay to protect their votes.
PDP also alleged that the All Progressives Congress (APC) was importing thugs from Imo and Kogi states ahead of the poll. It declared that Saturday’s election would be a battle between federal might and people’s might, boasting that people’s might would eventually triumph.
Speaking at a press conference, on Wednesday, PDP National Publicity Secretary, Debo Ologunagba, stated, “We are ready for the election, where the federal might would be against the people’s might. I can assure you that the people’s might will triumph.
“This is despite the massive importation of thugs from Imo State and Kogi State and they are given police, army uniforms to harass the people.
“But I can tell you that the people will not be bothered. They cannot be intimidated, like what happened at the Ikpoba hill, where a woman resisted the arrest and intimidation of the police and arrest of some PDP supporters.”
Ologunagba urged the over four million voters in Edo State to resist intimidation, while calling on them to vote and stay at the polling stations to guard their votes.
According to Ologunagba, ” People’s votes will be legitimately defended through democratic means. No one will render the people’s votes nugatory.”
The PDP spokesman called on INEC to ensure that all results were signed by the National Commissioner in charge of the South-south zone, with the Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC).
He stated, “We have directed our supporters to stay at the polling stations and defend their votes. They should make a photoshop of the results and post it.
“Our party has also been alerted that the APC has given fake police and military uniforms and dangerous weapons to their thugs to unleash violence on the people of Edo State on election day.
“These harassments, arrests and torture of PDP members and supporters are going on with the knowledge of the Edo State Commissioner of Police and the entreaties by the PDP to IGP to put such to an end have not received the desired attention.
“Against this backdrop, the PDP states in clear terms that our party and the people of Edo State will not fold our hands and allow the APC to intimidate the people, subvert or rig the Saturday, September 21, 2024, Edo State governorship election.”
Meanwhile, the state government on Wednesday, dismissed claims by the media consultant to the Edo APC Governorship Campaign Council, Kassim Afegbua, that the jobs of civil servants had been threatened.
A statement by media adviser to the governor, Crusoe Osagie said, “This is, however, not surprising, coming from Afegbua, as these sorts of lies can only make sense in the jaundiced minds of his likes, for whom anything goes, and because anything goes for them, they think it is the same for other people.
“We want to unequivocally state that there is no such thing and the government never made any statements whatsoever threatening civil servants. The dim-witted scribbling is not only false but a figment of the jaundiced imagination of Kassim Afegbua, whose loyalty is to mammon and not the people.
“The civil servants in Edo State are Nigeria’s happiest workers. They are liberated and well-empowered and have no reason to vote for Kassim Afegbua’s sinking party, the APC, whose government at the centre has not only superintended the liquidation of the Nigerian state but has inflicted untold hardship and suffering on the people.”
Chuks Okocha, Alex Enumah, Linus Aleke, Adibe Emenyonu and Ibrahim Oyewale
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