Ondo Poll: PDP Accuses APC Of Setting INEC Office Ablaze

… Says Ruling Party Jittery

The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) on Sunday, accused the All Progressives Congress (APC) of being responsible for the fire that gutted the head office of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) in Akure, Ondo State.

The party, therefore, asked Nigerians to hold the ruling party responsible for the incident.

A statement issued by the PDP Spokesman, Kola Ologbondiyan, said from the information available to the party, the “heinous act was perpetrated by agents of the APC as part of plots by APC leaders in the state to destroy INEC sensitive equipment so as to frustrate the conduct of credible, free and fair governorship election in the state.”

Recall that the INEC office in the state was a few days ago, engulfed in fire that destroyed at least 5,141 card readers.

The fire gutted the container housing smart card readers for the October 10 governorship election.

It happened exactly one month to the governorship poll in the state.

According to Ologbondiyan, it is clear that the APC has been in extreme fear over the soaring popularity of the PDP governorship candidate, Eyitayo Jegede, across the state.

He argued that as a result of this, the ruling party had resorted to violence and underhand tactics, particularly after realizing that there was no way its candidate, Governor Rotimi Akeredolu, “who has failed the people can win in a transparent, free and fair election on October 10.”

He added: “Our party invites Nigerians to note that that the attack on the Ondo INEC office came after, self-confessed APC militant and former APC leader in the state, Isaac Kekemeke, boasted that the APC will use violence to rig the October 10 election and that Governor Akeredolu was behind the violent political attacks rocking the state.

“Kekemeke had also boasted of APC’s plans to import armed thugs and militants to unleash mayhem in the state and disrupt a peaceful electoral process.

“It is therefore not by happenstance that the fire occurred in no other place than the facility where sensitive materials, such as card readers were stored, leading to the destruction of not less than 5141 card readers meant for the election were destroyed.”

The PDP spokesman also accused security agencies of failure to invite Kekemeke and other APC “hoodlums” for questioning, adding that they could have been responsible for “such brazen attack on INEC head office.”

He further disclosed that the party had also been reliably informed of plots by the APC to attack other INEC facilities in the state in a bid to cripple the commission and impede its plan to conduct a credible poll.

He called on security agencies to check the “violence proclivities” of the APC by immediately inviting governor Akeredolu, Kekemeke and other APC leaders in Ondo state for questioning and possible extraction of undertaking from them ahead of the election.

The opposition spokesman concluded: “We call on INEC to note that the APC is after its facilities and as such put stronger measures to protect itself from the assaults of the APC.

“Furthermore, our party will intensely monitor the process of replacement of the burnt card readers by INEC. This is to ensure that the APC did not succeed in their plots to manipulate the programming of the new card readers to suit their ugly plots of compromising sensitive data in the existing voters register in Ondo State.

“The PDP urged the people of Ondo state to remain at alert and resist the APC in their plot to disrupt credible elections on October 10.”

All efforts by our correspondent to get the reaction of the APC spokesman, Yekini Nabena, proved abortive as his telephone line was unreachable at the time of this report.