The Edo chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), has accused the All Progressives Congress (APC), of planning to rig the 21 September governorship election in the State by recruiting bogus INEC technical staff to temper with the BIVAS.
This is even as he insisted that APC could not be trusted with the governance of the state following its failure to upload the required number of agents at the 3,037 polling units in the state.
The PDP chairman, Dr. Tony Aziegbemi, disclosed this while addressing journalists in Benin City on Friday.
He said: “We wish to draw the attention of INEC and Edolites to the sinister plan of the APC which has been uncovered by our intelligence unit.
APC has perfected a plan to use fake INEC staff posing as Technical Staff to temper with the BVAS machine on the day of election to beef up the number of accredited voters on the BVAS machine.”
He therefore demanded that INEC publish the names and pictures of all appointed RTECs for the election and their posting in good time.
“APC knowing that they cannot win the election has resorted to rigging plans which will terribly fail, by the grace of Almighty God,” Aziegbemi added.
Commenting on INEC’s requirement from all participating parties to upload the namedls and photographs of their polling agents, Aziegbemi disclosed that none of the 17 parties was able to meet the requirement 100 percent.
He however disclosed that the APC could only upload 1,482 polling units in one local government area, instead of agents in the 3,037 polling units.
He therefore said that the APC should not be trusted with governance, if it could not perform such simple task.
“You will recall that INEC had issued a timetable and schedule of activities in Edo State for the governorship election. There are 13 items on that document. I draw your attention to item 9 “submission of names of political agents, to be uploaded on INEC portal.
INEC created a portal for political parties to upload their agents and access codes were given to the political parties. INEC portal for uploading Polling Agents opened on the 17th of July and automatically shut down on the 30th of July at midnight.
On the 29th of August, 2024, INEC invited the National Chairmen and National Secretaries for an emergency meeting in Abuja.
To our amazement, the APC did not meet with the requirement in 3,037 polling units and in 17 local government [areas], which means APC has polling agents in only 1,482 polling units and 1 local government agent.
PDP uploaded polling agents in 4,378 polling units. A party that cannot upload its polling unit agents in two-thirds of the polling units cannot be trusted with power in our State.
We demand that no political party be allowed to correct this anomaly,” the PDP chairman said.
Reacting to the allegation, the APC Campaign Council Media Director, Prince Kassim Afegbua, said the PDP is coming up with these allegations to distract attention.
He said: “The PDP has just told the public what they are planning to do, but the bad news is that we are monitoring them bumper to bumper. There is no escape route for Governor Obaseki and his godson, Asue Ighodalo.
We have told the world before now that Governor Obaseki brought hackers and cloners to Edo, with the aim of ensuring that the BIVAS are tampered with, while also cloning our candidate’s voice.
Now, they saw that is not working, they now want to device another method. By Monday and Tuesday, they have perfected plans to stage protest across the state asking that their criminal elements should not be arrested.
Those who were fingered in the killing of Inspector Onu Akor are running away from investigation. They are afraid of facing the consequences of their action, hiding in Edo state Government House for fear of arrest.
We get details of their meeting everyday. We exposed the voice notes of their so-called Edo Security Network directive to their armed personnel, telling them to hide their guns.
The game is up for them. Tell them to go and face their campaigns,” Afegbua added.
