Ahead of the September 21 governorship election in Edo State, the All Progressives Congress and the Peoples Democratic Party, on Monday, continued their allegation and counter-allegation about campaign violence in the state.
In a statement on Monday, the APC Campaign Council’s Media Director, Kassim Afegbua, condemned two recent attacks on the party’s campaign team, accusing the PDP of being behind the attacks but twisting the narratives to appear as the victims.
He said, “The rate at which propaganda has swallowed the PDP in Edo State in this campaign season is quite alarming. They brought in some hackers, spinners, hirelings and cloners to town, in order to twist narratives to suit their bulbous ego, trying as it were, with vaunted hoopla, to confuse Edo voters.
“Two incidents happened in Edo North campaigns of the APC, and the report we saw scripted by the PDP goons was most confounding.
“At Ososo campaigns in the Akoko-Edo Local Government Area, APC had a very successful campaign with huge a turnout to the consternation of the PDP and as we were departing the community, some rag-tag thugs ostensibly supporters of the PDP, wanted to disrupt the flow of our convoy.
“Thank God for our security operatives who were able to restore normalcy. We are of the strong belief that no blood of any Edo person is worth letting in the name of election. The story that PDP goons and urchins put out there was the direct opposite of what transpired.
“At Ekperi, in the Etsako Central Local Government, we also had a robust engagement with our supporters during the campaigns. When we were done, on our way to Fugar, the local government headquarters, some PDP street urchins and thugs tried to disrupt our convoy again, this time, shot at our candidate’s vehicle. Thanks again to the security operatives who accompanied us for the campaign exercise.”
They were able to arrest the ugly situation.
“When PDP hirelings and coupon clippers and rentiers reported the incident, it was twisted to show that we were chased out of Ekperi. Even the PDP chieftain from Ekperi, Barrister Pascal Ugbome, knows that Ekperi is the home of the APC, and the PDP would be beaten flat in that locality and the entire Etsako Land.
“We are just wondering why the PDP should think that electoral engagements must flow from the corpus of bloodletting and violence.”
Afegbua said that the APC had restrained its party members from getting involved in any act of violence during and after this election season, but the desperation of the PDP was inextricably dragging the APC to the path that would compel us to seek self-help.
But reacting to the allegation, the Chairman of the Akoko Edo LGA where one of the attacks occurred, Tajudeen Alade, said, “It is laughable to make such allegation against the deputy governor and I. Do you know the number of security men, armed police, armed soldiers, DSS that are following them in their campaigns?
“How could thugs, as they claimed, beat those heavily armed security men to disrupt their rally? They are all lies, nothing like me or the deputy governor sending thugs to attack them in their rallies.
“They had provoked me in the past when they came to stage a rally directly opposite my house by Technical Road Junction. I did not send anybody to disturb them until the police came. Is it when they held their rallies many kilometres away from my place that I would disrupt it? There is no iota of truth in their allegations.”