By Victor Ahiuma-Young

EDO State Chapter of Action Congress of Nigeria, ACN, has accused Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, and some staff in the ICT unit of the Independent National Electoral Commission INEC, of plans to manipulate and mutilate the voters’ register with a view to rigging the forthcoming gubernatorial elections in the state.

ACN claimed the plans were extensively discussed at a meeting presided over by a top PDP leader in Abuja, recently.

A statement by Thomas Okosun, State Chairman, ACN, said: “At the meeting, they resolved to bring in thugs from neighbouring states to, among other things, register in some targeted units for two purposes: one, increase their votes given the fact that they don’t have supporters; secondly, and more dangerously, to register such thugs in units where they will be used to foment trouble during the election.

“At the said meeting, it was resolved by the Edo PDP to mutilate the voters’ register, joggle names of voters from one polling unit to another, cause confusion and delete original voters and replace them with their thugs.”

Consequent upon this, Edo ACN petitioned the Chairman of INEC to draw his attention to the alleged plans of Edo PDP in collusion with the ICT unit of the INEC to give undue advantage to the PDP in the forthcoming elections.

He added: “We have discovered that the modalities and methodologies for the forthcoming registration exercise tend to raise more questions than answers.

“If the purpose of the exercise is intended to capture those who have attained the age of 18 since the last election of 2011, and given the projected population growth rate of three per cent, why embark on a full blown voters registration exercise?”