Romanus Ugwu, Abuja
Ahead of the November 16 Bayelsa State governorship election, the All Progressives Congress (APC) has accused the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) of planning to rig the polls with 100 released prison inmates.
The APC equally alerted the security agencies and the public of the alleged plot by the state ruling party to kit political thugs with military and police uniforms for the same rigging purpose.
In the statement signed by the party’s Deputy National Publicity Secretary, Yekini Nabena, the APC claimed that the 100 awaiting-trial inmates were released from Okaka Prison in Yenagoa by the state government.
It further alleges that it has also uncovered a plot by the PDP-led state government to lure voters with N20,000 each and deploy cloned Permanent Voters Cards (PVCs) among other measures to rig the governorship election.
“The state government recently ordered the secret release of 100 inmates awaiting trial from Okaka Prison to work for the PDP during the Saturday’s governorship election,” the statement reads.
“A member of the Bayelsa Governorship Special Purpose Election Committee (SPEC) which was set up and secretly working for the state government resigned recently from the committee and has reported the government’s plans to rig the election against the APC.
“So, I hereby alert the public and security agencies to the revelations by the former member of the election committee.
“Fake navy, army and police uniforms have been procured to kit political thugs recruited by the PDP-led government in Bayelsa state. Apart from the navy uniforms, already procured speedboats will be used by the thugs on the waterways.
“We are also in the known that (PVCs) to be used with the 47 stolen Card Readers are being cloned massively at the Government House. A certain amount of money is also said to have been stashed in Government House for vote buying. The plan is to lure voters with N20,000 each through the PDP agents,” Nabena claimed.
While specifically calling the attention of the security agencies to some of the revelations, the APC spokesperson urged them to prevent the PDP from carrying out the alleged plans he described as an “evil plot against the people of Bayelsa.
“The desperation of is worrisome. It is clear the PDP government will stop at nothing to rig the election in favour of its candidate even though it costs the lives, property of Bayelsans and officials on election duty.
“Going by INEC’s security risk assessment shared with the Inter-Agency Consultative Committee on Election Security, the Commission has identified flashpoints and reported that there are already warning signals in Bayelsa State.”
Reacting to INEC’s report Nabena said: “So, this is no longer a matter for investigation because our security agencies are very much aware of the security situation government has placed Bayelsa. This calls for a robust response from security agencies before the elections.
“The police as the lead agency for internal security must urgently begin mop up operations in order to prevent violence and attempt to rig the election.”
Meanwhile, all efforts to obtain comments by the state government did not yield any positive result as the Chief Press Secretary to the Governor, Fidelis Soriwei, told our correspondent that they were involved in campaigning and could not react immediately.