By Emmanuel Aziken, Leke Adeseri, Chidi Nkwopara, Demola Akinyemi & Dapo Akinrefon
LAGOS—THE Action Congress of Nigeria, ACN, and Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, were last night engaged in a war of words over alleged plans to rig tomorrow’s gubernatorial election in seven flashpoint states.

The ACN was the first to fire the salvo when it identified Lagos which it presently controls and Ogun, Oyo, Kwara, Akwa Ibom, Benue and Imo as states the PDP was planning to rig it out in tomorrow’s election.

Lagos State chapter of the ACN in its dispatch warned that any plan to rig it out of the governance of the state would provoke a reaction that could set the country on fire.

PDP chieftains in the seven states were, however, quick to dismiss the ACN’s insinuations in their separate reactions.
Kwara State chapter of the PDP said ACN’s insinuation was part of that party’s “normal propaganda scheme,” while the Imo chapter of the PDP described the allegations as another “unchristian, diversionary and baseless” insinuation against the Ikedi Ohakim led PDP administration.
Law enforcement agents

The Lagos State chapter of PDP on its part called on law enforcement agents to swing into action immediately and arrest whatever plans the ACN was hatching to cause riot in the event it lost tomorrow’s gubernatorial election in the State.

ACN’s assertions which were made in a press statement issued by its National Publicity Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, alleged that the PDP was aiming to rig the election in its favour in the aforementioned states using the cover that victory would be a continuation of the support given the party during the recent presidential election won by its candidate, Dr. Goodluck Jonathan.

Mohammed said: “The plank of the PDP’s bravado is that it will ride on the back of the ‘victory’ of President Goodluck Jonathan in the state in the April 16 presidential election.”

Warning that the fire of the people would come upon those with the rigging plans, he said that manipulations would also not be tolerated in “any of the states in which the party (ACN) was poised to carry the day, barring any systematic rigging by the irredeemable PDP, especially Ogun, Oyo, Kwara, Akwa Ibom, Benue and Imo states, just to mention a few.

He added: “What the people want is a genuinely free, fair and credible election. The seemingly free and fair poll so far, under the Modified Open Ballot System, has now been proven to be a facade in the real sense, since the poor oversight by INEC as well as observers at the various levels of the collation stage has given room for the PDP to massively doctor or out rightly cook up figures.”

The assertion of rigging in Kwara was immediately rebuffed by Isiaka Danmeiromu, the Kwara State Publicity Secretary of the PDP who pledged that the party would win tomorrow’s election clean and fair.

He said: “Our party, PDP, has never rigged, so we will not rig the forthcoming election. We are fully on the ground and our people love us and that’s why they voted for us massively in the last two elections. The people of Kwara believe in us, we have been campaigning on issues and our achievements; they know that the incoming government will even perform better.

House to house campaign

“As I am talking to you we are doing house to house campaign. It is baseless accusing PDP of planning to rig. The ACN are not on ground in Kwara, all they do is propaganda, they should go back to where they came from because Kwara is no go area for them.”

Imo State chairman of the PDP equally dismissed ACN’s assertions saying the party did not make any impact in any of the two previous elections held in the State.

State PDP Chairman, Chief Eze Duruiheoma (SAN), described the allegation from the ACN as “baseless, diversionary, unchristian and most uncharitable.”

Duruiheoma said: “Some elections had already been held in the state. ACN did not make any gain in that outing. What magic are they going to perform to change the tide now? By levelling the allegation, they are only trying to hold on to something for their failure at the polls.”

He wondered how ACN thought the present arrangement would favour rigging, adding: “All the registered political parties jostling for the people’s mandate, will post their representatives in all the voting and collating centres.”

Duruiheoma urged ACN loyalists and their leaders to think of selling their candidates to the electorate and not to raise unnecessary dust where there was none.
Lagos State Publicity Secretary of ACN, Mr. Joe Igbokwe, who in another statement warned of a possible breakdown of

law and order in the event the party was rigged out of reckoning in the Southwest said: “Lagos ACN wants to charge Prof, Jega and his INEC to sit up and address the many allegations of rigging, with which the PDP has rendered his carefully worked out electoral plan a huge joke.

“If he wants to gloss over these mounting and obvious cases of electoral malfeasance, we wish him the best of luck but he needs to know that the present elections are hugely manipulated especially at the collation centres and he must do something about it to prevent the implosion of the country.

Plans to rig election

“We want Jega to rein in his electoral officers, especially in Lagos and the entire South West against being used to set the country on fire. We want to warn any electoral officer that plans to come to the South West to rig election to try something else as he or she would live to regret it.

“We want to alert all out members and supporters in Lagos, the South West and the entire country to be vigilant and monitor every action from polling booths to all the collation centres till the announcement of the final results.

“We want to charge them to insist on preventing rigging and ensure they thwart any effort by the unscrupulous elements in the PDP to rig the coming election. We want to warn that whoever attempts to rig the coming governorship election in Lagos, South West and the entire country will live to regret such dastardly action.”

Reacting to ACN’s statement, the Publicity Secretary of the Lagos State PDP, Barrister Taofeek Gani, dismissed the remark and called on law enforcement agencies to nip in the bud such threat.

He absolved the PDP of any alleged plans to rig in the South West saying such inciting statements should not be taken lightly.

Gani said: “Law enforcement agencies should swing into action to nip this threat in the bud. Such threats can become a reality and at the same time, produce a level of destruction of lives and property beyond what we have witnessed in the North as a result of the loss of the CPC. More specifically, the maker of that threat, must be arrested because it is enough incitement.”

Reacting to the alleged plot to rig the election in Benue State, the Special Adviser to Governor Gabriel Suswam on Media and Publicity, Dr. Cletus Akwaya described the claim by the opposition party as unfounded and preposterous.

Akwaya maintained that the ruling party was prepared to confront the opposition in a free and fair conquest adding that the ACN was scared of a looming defeat hence the false alarm.