APC, PDP trade accusations over rigging plan in Ondo

AS preparations for the 2015 presidential elections approach the climax, politicians across the two major political divides in Ondo State have started to raise allegations of attempts by rival parties to rig the process in favour of their candidates 

   The APC in a statement by Ife Oyedele, the State Coordinator of the Buhari/Osinbajo Presidential Campaign Council, disclosed an alleged ingenious grand plan by the PDP to manipulate the elections in Ondo through voter intimidation and disenfranchisement of eligible voters.

    According to the statement, “details of the plan, upon verification, consist of mobilization of party thugs and specially hired hoodlums to induce and violate innocent voters on the day of the election. The specific plan include the recruitment of 50 persons per each of the 3,009 polling unit monetized at N50, 000 per person while 30 persons are recruited in each of the 203 wards at 30,000 each. Three coordinators are also being hired in each of the 18 local government areas at 100,000.

     “The job of these hoodlums, tagged as party canvassers, which is already ongoing in the rural areas, is first to, in the name of the government; induce rural voters to submit their voters cards for a monetary price. They are also paying the sum of N2, 000 to each voter for access to copy the VIN and other bio data of the voter on the Permanent Voters Card (PVC).

  “The objective is to clone the voters cards and mobilise for its use so that the cards can upon attempted use on Election Day, be invalidated by INEC’s new technology; the card readers which ultimately invalidates the original voters data and card. The ultimate goal is to cause confusion during the voting process and ultimately disenfranchise thousands of legitimate voters.”

    But in a swift reaction, the PDP, speaking through its Publicity Secretary, Banji Okunomo described the allegation as “propaganda from the pit of hell because what the APC alleged are their permanent feature and some of the reasons they have never made an impact in any election they have participated in this state. 

    “They have only ventilated a pre-meditated propaganda with which they intend to swindle their godfather as usual. It is their style to make spurious allegations to cajole their godfathers into parting with money. This is a party that has no structure in any of the 203 Wards in the state, they have never won a Councillorship or Assembly seat in the state and scored less than ten percent of the total vote cast in the last gubernatorial election where they came a distant third.”