OSUN BY-ELECTION: PDP, APC in war of words

THE Peoples Democratic Party, PDP and the All Progressives Congress, APC, in Osun State were engaged in war of words over plans to manipulate the outcome of the July 8 Osun West senatorial bye-election.

While PDP said there were plans to scuttle the process of free, fair and credible poll, the APC described the allegations as a blatant lie even as it challenged the party to prove and authenticate its claims. PDP APGA LGO Addressing newsmen in Osogbo, state chairman of the PDP, Mr Soji Adagunodo, accusing the APC leadership of allegedly mounting pressure on the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, to shift the date of the by-election scheduled for July 8 by another two to three weeks.


The PDP chairman alleged that some electoral officers were conniving with the APC leadership to disenfranchise eligible voters at the strongholds of the PDP, by allegedly expunging the voters’ names from the register. Adagunodo alleged that some chieftains of APC have “procured the service of notorious thugs from within and outside the state to unleash violence in Ede North, Ede south, Egbedore, Irewole, Iwo and Ayedaade Local Governments on election day.”

He said: “The APC election strategy committee is conniving with certain elements in the INEC to recruit OYES cadets and other party sympathisers as presiding officers and polling clerks. Part of the plan is to distribute fake NYSC uniform to these elements to make them carry out this noverious plan. “There are plans by the APC to ensure that INEC allocate non-functioning card readers to areas considered as stronghold of PDP.

This, in their thinking, would slow down accreditation of voters and get voters discouraged. “We have credible information about the plans of APC and the state government to arrange the arrest of leaders of the PDP in certain councils on the eve of July 8th by-election. As we speak, certain chieftains of APC have compiled names of their party members to be accredited by INEC as election observers and monitors.”

Adagunodo thereafter alleged the APC candidate in the election, Senator Mudashir Hussein, of clandestine plan to bring thousands of non-residents from Abidjan, Cotonou, Togo and Ghana as voters. Authenticate your allegations — APC But refuting PDP’s allegations, the APC challenged the party to authenticate the allegations and identify of the so called leaders of the APC with all the technical, electronic and forensic evidence necessary to prove the allegations.

The APC’s Director of Publicity, Research and Strategy, Mr Kunle Oyatomi, in a statement called on security agencies to investigate the allegations made by the PDP. Oyatomi said; “We also call on the security agents to invite the PDP leaders to convince them of all the allegations, otherwise they should be prosecuted.

“The APC believes that this allegations of rigging is the product of sick mentality of the Osun PDP and its supporters who are psychologically tormented by the obsession to win Osun West Senatorial seat by any concoctive and demonic means. “We declare that the APC can never descend to the criminality of accessing electoral materials not to talk of planning to rig the forthcoming election. “We are alerting Osun people to discountenance allegations by the PDP who could not do anything about the constant defeats they have suffered in the hands of APC since 2011.”