The APC Media Campaign Council for the Edo governorship election has accused the PDP of colluding with a senior INEC staff to rig the September 19 election in the state.

According to a statement released on Monday by the Chairman of the campaign council, Mr. John Mayaki, “the senior staff who recently quietly retired as INEC’s Director of Voter Education, is a first-cousin to Governor Godwin Obaseki and has been identified in a plot to trade sensitive inside information on the results collation process of the electoral body with the PDP in exchange for unnamed benefits”.

The party alleged that the said staff had initially refused to bow out of INEC despite the expiration of his tenure at the electoral commission, but was forced out following the revelation of his strong ties with the Edo Governor and his secret plot to stay put at the Commission to gain access to sensitive information on the Edo election.

Mayaki added that ” Edo State governor has discreetly named the said retired INEC staff as a private consultant in his re-election campaign with a mandate to provide tactics and strategies, using his experience at INEC, on ways to manipulate the election and substitute real results obtained at the polling units with fake results pre-written in the Edo State Government House.”

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Mayaki continued, “As an upgrade to the server scam that failed the PDP in the 2019 General Election because it ignorantly went with the fraud without insight on the result collation process of INEC, the party of tax-collectors, having lost all hopes of winning the Edo election in a fair contest, are concluding plans on another rigging strategy with the recent secret conscription of one INEC retired staff.

“The said staff, Obaseki’s first-cousin who served for many years at INEC and had to be forced out of Commission despite his stalling tactics to stay put until the conclusion of the election which he had planned to manipulate by offering sensitive inside information to his cousin, has now fully joined the Obaseki campaign, though secretly as a private consultant.

“His mandate, and those of others assigned to serve as his aides in the secret location has been lodged, is to develop strategies and tactics for the party on how to substitute results obtained at the polls with fake, pre-written ballots and a corresponding reflection of the electoral fraud in any electronic transfer, using his experience at the Commission.

“We have been reliably told by numerous sources at the Commission of the person in question’s strange enthusiasm and stubborn insistence to be a part of every meeting held at INEC, even sensitive ones outside the remit of his former position as Voter Education Director, before an internal disquiet at the Commission left him with no other choice but to tender his resignation.”

The party called on INEC to strengthen its infrastructure for the election against potential saboteurs, jus as he urged the “PDP to accept its looming defeat in good fate and as deserved consequences for the failure of its embattled candidate, instead of dabbling into actions that could attract criminal prosecution and imprisonment.”

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Reacting to the allegations, Chris Nehikhare, PDP publicity secretary in the state said the allegations were laughable, just as he questioned how the state government can rig election when it has no control over INEC and other security agencies.

While accusing the APC of the owner of the said plan of rigging, Nehikhare said he was “not surprised by the allegation because such was the practice when Adams Oshiomhole held sway as governor”.

He continued, ” How on earth can a state government that has no control over INEC, police, DSS, NSCDC or military influence election results? This is laughable to say the least.

” Edo people can still recollect how that same government through EDSIEC announced election results when collation was still ongoing.

” Indeed Edo people and Nigerians know the party that is plotting to rig the election. They watch the video of Adams Oshiomhole talking about arresting some people,” he said.

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Recall the PDP also raised the alarm yesterday that the APC was plotting to smuggle fake election results into collation centre.