By SIMON EBEGBULEM
BENIN—A Federal High Court sitting in Benin, Edo State, yesterday,  refused to stop this weekend’s House of Assembly re-run election in Akoko Edo constituency 11, of Edo State, after it failed to grant an application by six people,  believed to be indigenes of Akoko Edo.

This came as the Edo State government, yesterday, raised alarm over alleged plans by the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, to unleash mayhem with a view to disrupting the election.

But reacting swiftly, the PDP Director of Organisation, Mr Paschal Ugbome, described the allegation as laughable, saying that “this party whose fundamental distinguishing feature is gangsterism and thuggery will turn around to be accusing PDP of employing cultists. Evidence abounds in all the re-runs we had done, how they  pummeled our people and subjected them to the most abominable acts of violence.

“Most recently, even in their own ward congresses and ward elections, they killed people due to their act of brigandage. We see it as a ruse to deceive our people whereas we know they are the ones who are capable of this act of gangsterism. We are not a party to cultists or gangsters, we have respect for our people,” he said.

The applicants had asked the court for an interim order, restraining the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, from preventing the plaintiffs or any person duly registered in the recently concluded voters’ registration exercise from voting in the fresh election to be conducted in Akoko Edo, pending the determination of the suit.

Trial judge in the matter, Justice Adamu Hobom, rejected the application, but  granted leave to the plaintiffs to institute and maintain the suit in a representative capacity.

However, in a statement  by the Edo State Commissioner for Information, Mr Anslem Ojezua, the state government, said “having realized that they (PDP) are doomed to certain failure in the election, the party leadership has been moving hundreds of dangerous armed cultists into the area from neighboring Kogi and Ondo States.”

The clear intension is to disrupt the elections by violent means even if lives are lost in the process”.