By Ozioruva Aliu, BENIN CITY

THE Labour Party (LP) chairmanship candidate of Ovia North East local government area, Comrade Edwin Omoregie, the thirteen councilorship candidates and the leadership of the party in the area have called for the cancellation of the just concluded local government council election describing it as a charade as they alleged that there were no elections but were surprised that results were announced and purported winners sworn in by the governor.

Addressing a press conference in Benin City, Omoregie said Governor Godwin Obaseki failed the people with the way the election was conducted which he said ended up being a selection.

According to him, “The funniest part is that I could not vote for myself on election day because there were no materials in my ward. I usually vote at the collation center at Adolor Ward at the primary school but there were no materials on that day but funny enough, it was uploaded that LP scored 3,857 votes, who voted when myself as a candidate could not even vote for myself.

“The people came to vote but there were no materials, they were the only ones that said they voted. In areas like Obaren, Iyowa, Adolor Primary School in Ekiadolor and all the other places only the PDP are claiming that they voted, where did they vote, they manufactured figures and gave to us as our score in the election.

“We don’t want handpicked leaders because what we have is handpicked. We spent a lot of resources mobilizing for the election, but we got nothing out of it. The governor Godwin Obaseki hijacked the process because as a sitting governor he had promised a free and fair election but the reverse was the case.

“Meanwhile this is supposed to be a grassroots election where the people elect who they want but PDP thugs came and hijacked the process, went away the materials and none of our agents signed for the receipt of those materials except the PDP and they were the ones that went away with them. The people wanted their vote to count but they were not given that opportunity.

“I want to also pass this message to the state governor, I believe he is afraid of the Labour Party and is afraid of Comrade Edwin Omorege because if he is not afraid he would have given a level playing ground for the election to be conducted.”

Also speaking, the LP Chairman of the area, Comrade Nosa Uwaifo who was represented by the Assistant Welfare Secretary, Comrade Franklin Uyi corroborated Omoregie’s position insisting that the LP was confident of winning the election based on the assurances of the Edo State Independent Electoral.

He said “In Oluku ward where we have close to 27,000 voters, some local government areas don’t even have that population, we did not see any material, there was no voting in any of the units, yet results came out from there.

We want the election to be cancelled because the processes did not meet up with the set rules. The election has failed the test and it should not stand the test of time.”

Speaking on behalf of the 13 councillorship candidates of the party, Henry Owie said they heard intelligence reports that the materials would be hijacked and they duly informed the security agencies who allegedly did nothing about it.

“On election day, we were waiting in our respective wards for materials to come but we never saw any material.

“In Uhen ward, they took only one ballot paper to the unit of the councillorship candidate at Olumoye. He voted for himself and within five minutes everything was over and they announced their result and that was what happened in all the wards in Ovia North East.”