By Carl Oshodi Osagie
Following the Court order granted to Edo PDP Governorship candidate, Dr Asue Ighodalo, in the suit marked EPT/ED/GOV/01M/2024, to inspect Electoral Materials and Bimodal Voter Accreditation System(BVAS) Machines deployed for the conduct of the September 21 Guber election in Edo State, hundreds of armed thugs loyal to the All Progressives Congress(APC) have been mobilised by some notable Chieftains of the party to burn down the INEC Secretariat in Benin City.
The move to set the commission’s office ablaze is aimed at destroying credible documentary evidence which Ighodalo and PDP seek to rely on to support their case at the Edo Governorship Election Petition Tribunal sitting in Benin City.
Sources reveal that APC leaders in Edo State have been jittery over the Court’s decision to grant PDP’s request for inspection of some sensitive electoral materials given the monumental rigging, manipulation and outright falsification of results that characterised the controversial declaration of APC Candidate, Monday Okpebholo as Winner and Governor-Elect by INEC on September 22, 2024.
On Sunday October 6, 2024, APC acting Chairman, Jarret Tenebe met with Edo APC Youth Leader, Tony Kabaka alongside other notorious thugs at the Campaign Secretariat in Ikpokpan Road GRA. The thugs were mobilized by Tenebe to invade INEC Secretariat on Monday morning with specific instructions to block the entrance and forestall any attempts by the PDP lawyers to gain access into the office for inspection of Electoral materials as ordered by Court. The APC chairman openly boasted that he has the support of IGP Egbetokun and Wike to adopt the Rivers template to deny PDP access into INEC office.
Faced with the public outrage that trailed the blockage of the INEC office by APC thugs accompanied by Policemen on Monday afternoon, APC leaders regrouped in Adams Oshiomhole’s GRA residence and resolved to sponsor protests in the day, and then hire thugs at night to vandalize and set the INEC Secretariat ablaze, with the sinister objective of destroying every available evidence required in proof of PDP’s victory in Court.
It is particularly worrisome that a notable Minister has been fingered as the mastermind of this incendiary plot which is capable of causing a breakdown of law and order. In what could be described as a reenactment of the Rivers scenario, the thugs have been commissioned to specifically target the offices where the Result sheets and BVAS Machines are warehoused for arson so that there will be nothing for PDP to inspect.
Meanwhile, a Pro Democracy Group, Vanguard for Democracy and Good Governance Peer Review Initiative(DGG-PRI), has called on President Tinubu to caution the Inspector General of Police Kayode Egbetokun and other relevant security agencies over their undue interference and increasing complicity in Electoral crimes and violence being perpetrated in Rivers and Edo States simultaneously. There is a compelling need to call them to order to prevent a degeneration of the current situation.
