ACN protests alleged plan to rig Edo poll

Tension heightened in Benin, Edo State, on Monday as Action Congress of Nigeria members stormed the state Independent National Electoral Commission’s Ikpoba Hill office, to protest against an alleged plan by Peoples Democratic Party to rig the forthcoming governorship election in the state.

The state chapter of the ACN had earlier raised the alarm over alleged plans by the PDP to rig the July 14 governorship poll.

The protest which followed the arrest of an INEC official, Aigbe Goddie, who was caught with INEC’s Direct Data Capture Machine, led to a gridlock around the ever-busy Ikpoba Hill area for over two hours.

The INEC officer, who confessed to illegal possession of the DDC machine, said it was used for registration of voters on Sunday, ahead of Tuesday –the official commencement date for the voter’s registration update.

Edo State INEC spokesperson, Mrs Priscilla Imoudu-Sule, later said the electoral body was suspending the voters’ registration update.

She said, "INEC has suspended the update of voters’ registration exercise and will call a stakeholders meeting to decide on a next line of action."

In a statement by the state chairman, Thomas Okosun, the ACN alleged that the PDP in collusion with the ICT unit of INEC both in Abuja and in Benin planned to manipulate and rig the election.

Okosun’s statement added that the PDP at a meeting in Abuja resolved to bring in thugs from neighbouring states to register them in targeted polling units and to use them to cause trouble during election.

Okosun said ACN had petitioned the INEC chairman to draw his attention to PDP’s plans in Edo State.

The statement read, "At the meeting they resolved to bring in thugs from neighbouring States to among other things register them in some targeted units for two purposes: one, increase their votes given the fact that they don’t have supporters; secondly and more dangerously to register such thugs in units where they will be used to forment trouble during the election.

"At the said meeting, it was resolved by the Edo PDP to mutilate the voters register, joggle names of voters from one polling unit to another, cause confusion and delete original voters and replace them with their thugs.

The Edo State PDP Publicity Secretary, Mathew Urhoghide, however denied the allegation and urged INEC to go ahead with the exercise.

Urhoghide said, "INEC should not allow itself to be intimidated. They should go on with the voters registration exercise scheduled to commence Tuesday (today)."