Don wants Obaseki prosecuted, Yiaga banned from election monitoring

As the Saturday deadline nears for the filing of petitions against the September 21 governorship election in Edo State, tensions ran high yesterday as thugs reportedly linked to the All Progressives Congress (APC) disrupted the court-ordered inspection of electoral materials at the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) headquarters.

The inspection, sought by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) , aims to examine the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) machines. This is just as INEC denied obstructing any political party from inspecting election materials used for the election.

Some political thugs yesterday laid siege at the INEC office where a team of PDP lawyers and forensic experts were attacked. INEC had bowed to pressure announcing yesterday as the date for all parties to come for the inspection of the election materials.

But after the melee settled, APC said INEC has agreed to move the inspection of election materials to Thursday (today) to allow the party to prepare itself. Chairman of the APC in Edo State, Jarret Tenebe, and the legal counsel, Victor Ohiosumwan, confirmed to journalists that they did not come with all the necessary materials because of a mix-up in the inspection process.

Tenebe said: “They are supposed to start with an inspection of the register and we were not aware of it. INEC had already given us a register which we were supposed to compare with the register INEC will bring because there are a lot of suspicions here and there. After all, I raised earlier with you guys about the BVAS that was loaded from the government house to this place and registers were also included.”

Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC) in the state, Dr Anugbum Onuoha, said the allegations of obstructing the inspection of materials were baseless, misleading and devoid of truth. The PDP and its candidate, Dr Asue Ighodalo, had accused INEC of not obeying a court order granting the inspection of the election materials.

Meanwhile, the Federal Government has been urged to prosecute Governor Godwin Obaseki, whose party lost the election and ban Yiaga Africa from monitoring future elections. The Executive Director, Centre for Political Orientation and Leadership Training, Prof Mike Otabor, while delivering a paper in a workshop in Abuja, questioned the rationale behind African politicians’ negative reaction each time they lose an election, but do otherwise when they win.

Citing the situation in Edo, Otabor condemned Obaseki’s reaction after the September 21 governorship election. He reflected on the past when the governor won two previous governorship elections and a recent local council election.