Edo State Governor, Mr Adams Oshiomhole has decried the rise in politically motivated arrests in the state. He also accused the People’s Democratic Party, PDP, of planning  to undermine  frontline candidates of the Action Congress of Nigeria, ACN, in the state. 

Speaking at the opening of the Nigeria Bar Association, NBA, Benin Branch week in Benin City, Oshiomhole noted that in spite of the avowed declaration by President Goodluck Jonathan to ensure a free and fair election, “there are ominous signs, particularly with recent cases of assassination and politically motivated arrests, that this declaration may be in the breach.”

Alluding to the recent assassination attempt on Senator Ehigie Uzamere, the ACN senatorial candidate in Edo South, in which his police orderly was killed, the invitation by the police asking Mr Domingo Obende, the party’s senatorial candidate to appear in Abuja by next Monday and the arrest of an ACN chieftain, Francis Inegbeniki over a touted connection to a shooting incident, Oshiomhole said it was clear that the stage was being set to  stifle the capacity of the ACN in the forthcoming elections.