Bayo Akinloye
The Edo State Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Campaign Council said it had alerted the security agencies to an alleged deployment of thugs and arms in two branded Toyota Sienna buses to the state from Kogi State by the All Progressives Congress (APC). PDP State Publicity Secretary Chris Osa Nehikhare, who made the allegation on Saturday in Benin City, said APC intended to use the thugs to intimidate the electorate and cause mayhem during the impending governorship poll in Edo State.
But APC dismissed the allegation as shameful descent into hoaxing and delusion by a jittery governing party that ought to be campaigning with issues. Chairman of APC Campaign Council, Mr. John Maiyaki, said the alleged van filled with arms existed only in PDP’s corrupt imagination.
Nehikhare, who spoke on behalf of the PDP campaign council, said intelligence revealed that the thugs were loaded into two buses stuffed with arms and ammunition and dispatched through Kogi State borders into Edo State to execute APC’s evil plan. He called on the Nigeria Police, Nigerian Army, and the Department of State Services (DSS) to track the movement of the buses and ensure that anyone found culpable was brought to book.
According to him, “The buses are loaded with arms and ammunition. They were given mandates to intimidate the electorate and cause mayhem.
“We have always maintained that the APC has nothing to campaign with and has only one face-saving strategy: to intimidate voters. This is all they plan to do in this election and we have seen this manifest in a number of times as they have unleashed mayhem on innocent Edo people.”
Nehikhare said the state government was committed to ensuring a free and peaceful election, while working with the relevant security agencies to protect life and property in the state.
However, APC cautioned PDP to quit hallucination and face issue-based campaign that would help the Edo electorate make their choices on September 19. It said wild rumours at this time, which had become PDP’s pastime, would do the state no good.
Maiyaki stated, “The latest falsehood from the hallucinating PDP is a branded van, loaded with arms, from Kogi State. Let the DSS go ahead and probe this latest allegation. But take it from us: it’s another ploy to divert attention from the real thing: the PDP is scared of a bad beating at the polls on September 19; and it tries to divert the people’s attention.”
The APC campaign council chairman said the party was busy taking its candidate, Pastor Osagie Ize-Iyamu’s SIMPLE agenda to the people and had no time to fantasise with wild imaginations.
“Compare our campaigns with theirs. Look at the Edo people’s passion, as they warm up to POI’s messages of hope, as we touch down in every community, in all parts of Edo State,” he stated, adding, “Why would we disrupt a campaign going on so well for us to run arms? Does a popular and accepted party need to intimidate anyone?”
Maiyaki said given the deceit that PDP had employed as campaign strategy ahead of the polls, it was possible the alleged vans with arms were actually PDP’s creation, while the alert was meant as cover for the act. He said, “All I know is we’re too busy selling our resonating message of hope to have time for any illegal or illicit activity. Let the PDP campaign as we are doing and get serious. Maybe then, they would have less time for old wives’ tales. An idle mind, they say, is the devil’s workshop.”
He said APC was in the election to win and could not be distracted.
The APC chairman stated, “Governor Obaseki wasted four years and yet couldn’t prove himself. Now, his adopted party is wasting the short campaign period, passing around rumours, simply because they lack winning ideas. When we win big on September 19, they will mouth another set of rumours and lies. But we wish them well: hard work, not wild rumours, win elections. We mean serious business.
“Let PDP continue wasting precious time. They will see the result on September 19.”(THISDAY)
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