Less than 24 hours to Osun state governorship election, the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) on Friday accused the All Progressives Congress (APC) of conniving with Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to create illegal polling units with the intention to rig the poll.
Addressing newsmen on Friday in Abuja, the National Publicity Secretary of PDP, Kola Ologbondiyan, boasted that the Party will dismantle all the plots of APC.
“We have also alerted Nigerians that the APC in a connivance with INEC was creating illegal polling units and delineating illegal wards across the federation.
“It will interest you to know that just as we are preparing for the Osun election, we have been able to burst one of those fictitious electoral wards created for APC to rig election.
“Ila Local Government has 11 electoral wards, but ahead of tomorrow’s (today) election, INEC has created an imaginary 12th ward for Ila and allocated over 4,000 votes for that ward and that ward is called Iperin.
“What they have done is to create two words in Iperin, instead of one; allocated votes for both wards including the original ward and the fictitious ward,” Ologbondiyan said.
The PDP Spokesman pointed out that PDP will not accept rigging, adding, “As we promised, we will dismantle every rigging plots of APC ahead of the election
He said: “It is strange that an electoral body would collide and collude with a political party with the intention of generating votes that will make them win an election
“The PDP is making an outright demand that INEC withdraw this fictitious electoral ward from its database. We have also directed our members to continue to monitor the devious plans of APC and INEC during Osun election.
“We know the members of APC who hailed from Ila, and we also know those whom the votes have been carved out for, but we totally reject the sudden and emergency creation of a fictitious ward whether as a mark of honour to those who come from Ila from APC; but the PDP will not accept any result that come from Iperin if INEC insist on allowing votes in the two Iperin ward.
“We have a Situation Room in Osun and we also have our men on grounds, this is a photocopy of INEC checklist. Ordinarily, if INEC is delineating constituency, where two or three wards shares name, they will give it the numeral figures; like this Iperin, would have been Iperin 1 and Iperin 2, but what we have in this situation is Iperin, Iperin.
“And to also showcase the fact that this is a deliberate plot, we discovered that the figures allocated to the two Iperin wards are different, one has over 4,000 votes, the other has over 2,000 votes.
“In all, where they would have had 2,000 votes, they want to generate 6,000 votes. We are not yet aware of the number of local government where this is currently happening.
“But like I said earlier, the PDP is determined in this Osun election to dismantle all the rigging plans and all the rigging plots of the APC ahead of the 2019 elections.
“Our men are on the street of the entire Osun and we are also collaborating with CSOs who are determined to ensure a clean, clear, free electioneering process.
“We are working on ensuring that all ballot papers allocated to this fictitious ward are withdrawn.”
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