Accusations and counter-accusations between the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Edo State continued on Wednesday and the lawyers of both parties disagreed over the inspection of electoral materials on Wednesday.
While the APC lawyers and leaders said they were working on the court order of inspection of materials as directed, the PDP leaders accused the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) of colluding with the APC to frustrate their efforts.
The Director General of the Asue/Ogie Campaign Management Council, Mathew Iduoriyekemwen, said “It is clear that INEC is delaying this process because the filling of the case at the tribunal is time-bound.
“We have got an injunction to allow our lawyers to inspect the materials but they have not been able to do so for two days despite going to INEC for that purpose
“What INEC did today (Wednesday) was to call lawyers of both parties and then the APC arrived at the venue with lots of thugs. This is not the first time materials have been inspected so I don’t know why this one is different.
“We are going there tomorrow;(Thursday). I will be there personally, so let us see if anyone will stop us from making sure that INEC complies with that court order. We are either democratic or not. If we are in a dictatorship, they should let us know that is what we are practising.”
On the other hand, Counsel to the APC, Victor Ohionsumua, told journalists, “You are aware that there is a court order, granted exparte to PDP for inspection of materials. We were also proactive in APC and also filed for inspection of materials which was granted on the 7th of October, 2024.
“Yesterday (Tuesday), they invited us here that they were going to start the inspection of materials today (Wednesday) by 10 am. Our legal team came here and we were served with a schedule. Just a few minutes after that, the PDP legal team said that they wanted to start with BIVAS.
“We Drew the INEC officer’s attention to the order obtained by the PDP, which says that inspection of materials should start with the Voters’ Register. So upon which order are they complying when they now said we should start with BIVAS machines?
“So, INEC looked at the order and found out that our objection had merit and said based on that we should start the inspection with the voters’ register.
He continued, “Unfortunately, because we were not carried along with the preparation of the schedule, we didn’t come here (INEC office) today (Wednesday) with our own voters’ register.
“We cannot be inspecting voters’ registers when there is no other register that we have to do some comparison.
“So, we now applied that because the time has gone, and we don’t have our voters’ register with us, we should adjourn the inspection to tomorrow (Thursday).
“Our application for adjournment was upheld and we will be back here at 10 am tomorrow (Thursday) and the political parties, about seven of them, all agreed that we should come back tomorrow. So, we are going to reconvene at INEC tomorrow morning.”
Acting chairman of the APC, Jarrett Tenebe alleged that the reason why voters register is an issue was because the name of the PDP candidate in the election, Asue Ighodalo was not in the register.
He added, “You are aware that the case between PDP and APC is still in the Supreme Court and that has to do with the status of the candidate of PDP as a registered member of the party in the state and that is the reason voters’ Register is an issue.
“We are going to come with all the registers they gave to us tomorrow, to compare with the ones they are bringing.”
At the INEC office, members of the APC converged opposite the building. They played songs and praised the winner of the election, Senator Monday Okpebholo while the PDP supporters were also at the Ramat Park to avoid a clash, while policemen were stationed around the office. Red tape was also used to barricade the building for those who had business in the office.
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