Edo Civil Society Organizations(EDOSCO) has charged the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to give Edo people assurance by its actions and activities that, it is ready to conduct a free, fair and credible governorship election in the state.
The organization made the charge during a press briefing addressed in Benin City by its Coordinator General, Leftist Omobude Agho, on Tuesday morning.
Going further, he stated: “while calling on our security agencies, the Nigeria police force, DSS, NSCDC and the military not to take part in the rigging plans as been recorded previously or putting the lives of citizens in exacerbated fears and uncertainty.
“We hope that the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) can for once wake up to one of its major responsibilities by channeling its energy chase after vote buyers and sellers during this election which is more of national sabotage than chasing after ‘yahoo boys’.”
According to the EDOSCO, “we have noted that instead of political parties to go about their campaigns and selling their manifestos to the people for informed decision on election day, they have imbibed a sad tradition of the use of vile and bile words against party candidates. They are expected to strictly stick to issues and ideologically based engagements that will better the lot of the people.
“Verbal attacks must be discouraged as it is capable of breeding bloody violence and eternal hate among supporters, instead we encourage that Manifestos must be compulsorily documented and freely made available to citizens for record and reference purposes.
“Candidates are expected to speak to issues and stop playing to the gallery during public outings and should call their online supporters to order as the verbal attacks are becoming more worrisome these days.”
On pre-election violence, EDOSCO stated: “Worthy of mention in the forthcoming election is the incident that happened in the Benin Airport on July 18th, 2024 involving the governorship candidate of the APC, Senator Monday Okpebholo and Rt. Hon. Philip Shaibu who came to Benin to enforce a purported court ruling reinstating him as the deputy governor. It was an unfortunate situation that saw to the death of one Inspector Akor Onu an orderly attached to Senator Monday Okpebholo.
“We use this medium to urge the Nigeria Police force to carry out discreet and unbias investigation on the matter to prove for once that the life of an ordinary Nigerian person is valuable.
“There have been disturbing reports of violence in some parts of the state, political parties’ intolerance of each other. Physical attacks, destruction of campaign materials and personal properties have been reported as regular occurrence.”
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