Edo Councils Poll: How PDP manipulated process – LP

The Labour Party (LP) has completely rejected the outcome of the Edo local government councils polls held across the state on Saturday morning.

In a statement signed by Comrade Sam Uroupa, the Publicity Secretary of the party in the state, he accused the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) of manipulating the electoral process in its favour.

According to him, “Election materials distributed to the various LGAs by Edo StateIndependent Electoral Commission (EDSIEC) has been forcefully taken away at gun point in Okada, Ovia North East LGA.

“The electoral materials arrived Okada at about 11:00pm on Friday, 1st September, 2023.

“Eyewitness account has it that PDP thugs numbering over fifty were stationed at the entrance of the Secretariat where the materials were taken to, they started shouting and shooting sporadically to scare away all Labour Party(LP) members
‘we don’t want Labour Party here. It is PDP we are working for.’

“The vehicles that were parked beside the hoodlums were all from Edo State Government House, suspected to have conveyed them there. As we speak, both the sensitive and non-sensitive materials are still in their custody.

“As a Party we consider this as EDSIEC connivance with the PDP led government to hijack the process. If not why would they have to deliberately delay the distribution of materials till late in the night?

“EDSIEC should not make any attempt to announce any result already written in Government House because we are reliably informed that they delayed the distribution of the materials till night to enable the Government House plan of hijacking the process.

“In Ovia South West it is the same thing, PDP thugs came with sporadic shooting and cart away the voting materials going to Ofunama ward, Inikorogha ward, Udo, Siloko and several other wards. In Oredo ward 7, the voters were chased away at Garrick, there were no materials brought to the place.

“As peak there is no election in the affected areas. The situation is no different in many other places.

“The entire exercise is been hijacked as there is no voting taking place in all the polling units across the the State. Edo Labour Party rejects the outcome of today’s election.”