The Edo State chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Tony Aziegbemi, over the weekend, accused the All Progressives Congress (APC) of planning to rig the September 21 governorship election in the state by recruiting bogus Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) technical staff to tamper with the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) machine.
He also insisted that the APC could not be trusted with the governance of the state following its failure to upload the required number of agents at the 3,037 polling units in the state.
The PDP chairman, Dr Tony Aziegbemi, disclosed this while addressing journalists in Benin City, Edo State.
“We wish to draw the attention of INEC and Edolites to the sinister plan of the APC, which has been uncovered by our intelligence unit.
“APC has perfected a plan to use fake INEC staff posing as Technical Staff to tamper with the BVAS machine on the day of the election to beef up the number of accredited voters on the BVAS machine.
“APC, knowing that they cannot win the election, has resorted to rigging plans which will terribly fail, by the grace of Almighty God,” Aziegbemi added.
He therefore demanded that INEC publish the names and pictures of all appointed RTECs for the election and their posting in good time.
Commenting on INEC’s requirement for all participating parties to upload the names and photographs of their polling agents, Aziegbemi disclosed that none of the 17 parties was able to meet the requirement 100 per cent.
He, however, disclosed that the APC could only upload 1,482 polling units in one local government council, instead of agents in the 3,037 polling units.
He therefore said that the APC should not be trusted with governance if it could not perform such simple tasks.
“You will recall that INEC had issued a timetable and schedule of activities in Edo State for the governorship election. There are 13 items on that document. I draw your attention to item 9, ‘submission of names of political agents, to be uploaded on the INEC portal.’
“INEC created a portal for political parties to upload their agents, and access codes were given to the political parties. The INEC portal for uploading Polling Agents opened on the 17th of July and automatically shut down on the 30th of July at midnight.
“On the 29th of August, 2024, INEC invited the National Chairmen and National Secretaries for an emergency meeting in Abuja.
“To our amazement, the APC did not meet the requirement in 3,037 polling units and in 17 local government areas, which means APC has polling agents in only 1,482 polling units and one local government agent.
“PDP uploaded polling agents in 4,378 polling units. A party that cannot upload its polling unit agents in two-thirds of the polling units cannot be trusted with power in our state.
“We demand that no political party be allowed to correct this anomaly,” the PDP chairman said.
Reacting to the allegation, the APC Campaign Council Media Director, Prince Kassim Afegbua, said the PDP is coming up with these allegations to distract attention.
“The PDP has just told the public what they are planning to do, but the bad news is that we are monitoring them bumper to bumper. There is no escape route for Governor Obaseki and his godson, Asue Ighodalo,” Afegbua said.
