How APC Planed To Use Shift To Rig Election

The PDP yesterday, threatened to resist and if possible make it impossible for the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to conduct the rescheduled September 28 governorship election in the state, if the commission yields to alleged pressure from a very prominent government and APC figure in the state to change the already appointed Electoral Officers (EOs).

The PDP chairman in the state, Chief Dan Orbih, who made the threat at a media briefing in Benin City, said the threat became necessary following information at his disposal that a very prominent state official has promised APC members that he was going to influence INEC to transfer all the EOs in the 18 local government areas of the state and bring in those from APC friendly states in his bid to compromise the election.

But INEC Public Relations Officer, Mrs. Priscilla Imoudu-Sule, rebuffed the claim describing it as unfounded. She explained that, during the Sallah holiday, all the respective EOs went to their various local government areas of operation to retrieve all the materials already sent out for safe keeping. Orbih, nevertheless, said shift was to allow the APC to buy all unclaimed PVCs from the three senatorial districts and give such to APC members to be imported from other states to rig the election. Chief Orbih said: “Part of the plot is to ensure that in the areas where APC is popular, the Card Reader would be made to function, while in areas where they are not popular, Incident Forms will be deployed just to undermine the process.” He further noted that part of the reasons the election was shifted was to give the APC enough time to petition the police to arrest notable leaders of PDP on trumped up charges that they are militants. For instance, Orbih said he was in possession of a letter, inviting one of the female PDP leaders and another long list of party chieftains to be invited by the Police with the aim of keeping them away from the election. Even at that, the PDP chairman said he was reliably informed that the state governor had paid money to militants from Delta and other APC controlled states to come and rig the election and when arrested, should confess they were sent in by PDP to justify his earlier allegation that it was the party that hired them.