The All Progressives Congress (APC) and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Edo State have continued to exchange accusations over campaign violence ahead of the September 21 governorship election.
The APC Campaign Council’s Media Director, Kassim Afegbua, alleged that the PDP was behind two recent attacks on the party’s campaign team in Edo North. “The rate at which propaganda has swallowed the PDP in Edo State in this campaign season is quite alarming. They brought in some hackers, spinners, hirelings and cloners to town, in order to twist narratives to suit their bulbous ego, trying as it were, with vaunted hoopla, to confuse Edo voters,” Afegbua said.
He cited two incidents, one at Ososo campaigns in the Akoko-Edo Local Government Area, where APC had a successful campaign, and another at Ekperi, in the Etsako Central Local Government, where the party’s convoy was allegedly shot at. “When PDP hirelings and coupon clippers and rentiers reported the incident, it was twisted to show that we were chased out of Ekperi. Even the PDP chieftain from Ekperi, Barrister Pascal Ugbome, knows that Ekperi is the home of the APC, and the PDP would be beaten flat in that locality and the entire Etsako Land,” Afegbua said.
However, the Chairman of the Akoko Edo LGA, Tajudeen Alade, denied the allegations, describing them as “laughable.” “Do you know the number of security men, armed police, armed soldiers, DSS that are following them in their campaigns? How could thugs, as they claimed, beat those heavily armed security men to disrupt their rally? They are all lies, nothing like me or the deputy governor sending thugs to attack them in their rallies,” Alade said.
Alade also recalled a past incident where the APC staged a rally opposite his house, but he did not disrupt it. “Is it when they held their rallies many kilometres away from my place that I would disrupt it? There is no iota of truth in their allegations,” he said.
The APC has warned that it may be forced to seek self-help if the PDP continues to provoke its members. Afegbua said, “We are just wondering why the PDP should think that electoral engagements must flow from the corpus of bloodletting and violence.” The APC has restrained its party members from getting involved in any act of violence during and after this election season, but the desperation of the PDP is dragging the APC to the path that would compel it to seek self-help.
