…Allegation, infantile blackmail — PDP

…73,000 operatives deployed; NLC warns against use of soldiers

By Emmanuel Aziken, Victor Ahiuma-Young Henry Umoru & Gbenga Olarinoye

Ahead of tomorrow’s gubernatorial elections in Osun State, the All Progressives Congress, APC, yesterday claimed to have uncovered a rigging manual prepared by the state branch of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP to twist the outcome of the election.

The national chairman of the APC, Chief John Odigie-Oyegun at a briefing in Osogbo, said the manual was in form of two documents that also included already prepared election results that put the PDP as having won the election.

The claims were immediately dismissed by the PDP which described the assertions as a trick by the APC to distract PDP and its supporters into a form of lethargy that would dissuade them from coming out to vote in the belief that the PDP was destined to win by hook or crook.

Odigie-Oyegun, while claiming that the APC was in possession of the alleged PDP rigging manuals, said the first of the documents detailed plans to rig the polls across the polling units using pre-programmed ballot papers “already designed and thumb printed with vanishing ink in favour of PDP.”

The second document, entitled ‘’Task Force: Operation (PDP) takeover of Osun’’, according to the APC national chairman, lists the actions to be taken at most of the 30 Local Government Areas in the state, including thuggery, snatching of ballot boxes and instigation of violent clashes, the PDP members to coordinate the recommended actions and the APC members to be arrested to pave the way for such actions.

The party said the ‘secret’ document further contains the plan to deploy specified numbers of impression ballot papers and vanishing ink in 1,195 polling units across 155 wards in all Local Government Areas of Osun State, in addition to a plan to de-register 47,000 voters, whose Voters Identification Numbers have been illegally acquired so they won’t find their names on the voters register on election day.

It said the document also contains the number of pre-allotted votes for each local government to make up the number of 406,116, which the PDP has pre-allotted to itself even before the commencement of voting.
The party, which gave a breakdown of the alleged figures allotted to the local governments, said the rigging plan was to be carried out in collaboration with officials of the Independent National Electoral Commission.

APC said the outlined rigging plans explain why the PDP has been boasting repeatedly that it would capture Osun, having successfully executed similar plans in Delta Senatorial, Anambra governorship and Ekiti elections.

‘’All these point to the fact that PDP’s devilish plans to destroy our nascent democracy would stop at nothing to achieve its aim. We hereby put all stakeholders on red alert. We call on Prof. Attahiru Jega to ensure that his name does not go down in infamy as some others have. ‘We also call on the new IGP and other security agents to show to Nigerians that they are truly professional men and women of honour. We appeal to all Nigerians and particularly the Osun electorates to be extra vigilant and ensure that their will is not subverted by this on-rushing brigade of evil,’’ the party said, vowing to put all machinery in place to safeguard the mandate of its teeming supporters and resist all forms of intimidation or devilish manipulation of the voting process.”

BRIEFING: From left — Mr Kunle Oyatomi, Osun State Publicity Secretary, All Progressives Congress, APC; Elder Adebiyi Adelowo, Osun State Chairman; Chief John Odigie-Oyegun, National Chairman; and Alhaji Lai Muhammed, National Publicity Secretary during the press conference in Osogbo yesterday by APC leaders over an allegation that the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, is planning to rig the Saturday governorship election in Osun State. Photo by Dare Fasube.

APC allegation, infantile blackmail — PDP
However, the national leadership of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP has described allegations by Odigie-Oyegun, of plots to rig the election as an “infantile blackmail”.

In a statement by PDP National Publicity Secretary, Chief Olisa Metuh, PDP while noting that it was unbecoming of APC’s national Chairman’s office and status, stressed that the allegations were “completely wild, baseless and mere fabrications aimed at distracting PDP members and supporters and discourage them from fully participating in the election. The the allegation was a ploy by the APC to make its members and supporters over-confident and divert attention to their own sinister plan.”

Metuh, who noted that there would be no room for rigging, said “the process of accreditation, voting, counting of votes and declaration of results will be openly observed by the print, electronic and social media as well as local and international observers.”

The PDP said one of the legacies of President Goodluck Jonathan’s administration was free, fair and credible polls, adding that “such will in no way be compromised in Osun or any other election for that matter.”

Osun should not be militarised — NLC
Nigeria Labour Congress, NLC,  has warned against militarilisation of Osun state ahead of tomorrow’s election, saying Congress is “worried by the deployment of armed security men and women to Osun State as part of preparations ahead of the Governorship election scheduled to hold this Saturday across the state.”

NLC in a statement by its President, Mr. Abdulwaheed Omar, said  “We believe this cannot be helpful to the growth of any democratic culture as it portends an infringement on the rights of the electorate who may refuse to participate in the election as a result of the intimidating presence of armed security agents. More worrisome is the reported shootings across the state capital by officers of the State Security Services (SSS) shortly after arriving the state for election-related duties. We wonder why the SSS had to waste bullets shooting sporadically to scare residents who were not engaged in any form of violence at the time of the shootings.

“Inasmuch as elections are very important to any democracy, we caution that the state should not be turned into a war. We have had relatively credible elections in the past without a resort to over militarization. Peaceful elections are possible in any part of the country without armed monitors if political actors are ready to play by the rules. While we do not discountenance the importance of security for peaceful and orderly elections, over dramatization of the use of force and arms defeats the very essence for which security is needed.

“Militarization of elections is antithetical to democratic ethos and norms. Accordingly, we advise our military, DSS and the Police high commands to ensure that their officers and men comply with all civilised norms guiding elections instead of wasting precious and expensive ammo. They are bound by law to respect the rights of the electorate. We similarly advise the political actors, their supporters and the electorate to conduct themselves within the limits of the law.”

73,000 operatives deployed
However, report has it that a total number of 65,000 security operatives including 15,000 soldiers, 30,000 policemen, 8,000 operatives of the Department of State Security and 20,000 civil defence officers has been deployed for the purpose of maintaining law and order throughout the period the gubernatorial election in Osun State would last.

According to a source, the Federal Government initially deployed to the state soldiers whose figure was 5,000 until yesterday when it was jerked up to 15,000 while the figure of both the conventional and mobile police deployed has been increased to 30,000.

The source added that men of the anti-terrorism squad are part of those drafted to the state, saying, they are already searching for dangerous weapons including improvised explosive devices, adding that “we are doing random picking of individuals to search particularly suspected persons.”
The operatives have been deployed to all the 30 Local Government Areas of the state.

Deployment of troops in order — Osuntokun
Speaking, a national leader of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, Bashorun Akin Osuntokun, has accused the All Progressive Congress, APC, of politicizing deployment troops for governorship election.
Osuntokun, in a statement, insisted that the deployment of security men to Osun State was with a view to ensuring that there is prevailing  peace before, during and after tomorrow’s election.

The statement reads:
”It is difficult to understand the logic of those who are making an issue of this fallacy (militarization). From the elementary logic of such clichés as ‘prevention is better than cure’ ‘hope for the best but prepare for the worst’ nobody can fault the anticipatory action of taking all security measures to address a potentially volatile situation-which is the case with all bitterly fought elections in Nigeria.

”In the case of Ekiti state, any fair minded and objective observer will report that the complementary role of the military served to enable not disable the conduct of a free and fair election largely devoid of thuggery and violent eruptions.”