By Simon Ebegbulem & Gabriel Enogholase

The Edo State government and the PDP were yesterday locked in a war of words over alleged plans to compromise the ongoing voter registration exercise.

The state government in a press statement issued by the State Commissioner for Information, Prince Kassim Afegbua had accused a neighbouring PDP controlled governor of recruiting thugs to register in neighbouring communities on the Edo State side of the border to the purpose of being used as thugs during the main election.

The PDP in a sharp reaction accused the Edo State government of equally plotting to compromise the integrity of the voter roll by inputting Internally Displaced Persons, IDPs from the north into the voter’s register.

The statement issued by the Edo State government read in part:

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“According to information at our disposal, forty political thugs have been dispatched to each of these border villages with the sole aim of registering them as voters before engaging their services to perpetrate violence during the September 10 election.

“We wish to place the security agencies on notice of this untoward intention of the (neighbouring) State Government with their Edo PDP collaborators to cause a breach of security in Edo state.”

The PDP in a sharp reaction said: “Even within their party, they use guns and all sort of weapons to settle political scores. Whenever they are up to something sinister, they employ diversionary tactics. Edo people will not fall for his deceit and lies as they are prepared to vote his party out in the September election.

“We know for a fact that he has concluded plans in collaboration with the Northern sponsor of his puppet candidate to register northerners in the IDP camps as well others transported from Kogi and Kano States to boost his party’s dwindling political fortune.