By Mercy Onyenweli
The Edo State People democratic party (PDP)has accused President Ahmed Tinubu of directing INEC and the Police to rigg Edo State Governorship election in favour of All Progressive Congress.
The PDP Publicity Secretary, Rev. Olu Martins stated this while addressing Newsmen in the party Secretariat in Benin City.
He said that prior to the election, the President assured Edo APC he is going to give Edo State to his party and from all that transpired, INEC and the Police were used to achieve the threats.
Rev Martins described the just concluded Governorship election as the worst in the history of Nigeria.
According to him , there was a collaboration between INEC and the Police to subvert the Will of the people .
“This is not democracy, we hold President Tinubu responsible to what happened in Edo State last Saturday because when he made that statement that “I will give Edo State to you, I am the President and Commander in Chief of Armed Forces, Edo State will come back to APC” His statement was a clear indication of anarchy.He said.
Speaking further, he said the election was going on smoothly at the unit level until INEC directed that collations of results should be moved to the INEC state office and that was were the magic was performed.
He claimed that PDP agents were denied access to the State collation center while APC members were seen strolling in and out of the INEC office as if the party has a department in INEC office.
According to him, the PDP Campaign director, Hon.Mathew I. And the State Governor , Godwin Obaseki was also denied access to the collation center, thereby denying PDP knowledge of what was going on at the INEC office.
“The security operatives were giving APC members and their supporters protection and harassing our members, infact,one AIG clearly asked us to step aside if we can not stomach what they were at INEC office to do. We know him, when it is time, we will be calling them out and shaming them too.”
“If you look at what was uploaded in the IREV, it was different from what was collated at the ward level which is in form EC8A. If you notice, the difference was not much because they were deductions across boards”.
He however enjoined the PDP teeming supporters to remain calm as they are taking their time to study the areas the results were manipulated by INEC.