PDP imports mercenaries to register in Edo, saysOshiomhole

PDP imports mercenaries to register in Edo, saysOshiomhole

Source:World stage

Governor Adams Oshiomhole of Edo State has
accused some politicians in the opposition Peoples
Democratic Party in the state of importing

mercenaries to register in their wards to boost their
numbers for the forthcoming elections in the state.
Speaking Monday after monitoring the ongoing
Continuous Voter’s Registration Exercise at Ward 10,
Iyamho, Etsako Central Local Government Area of the
state, Oshiomhole said bus-loads of mercenaries were
imported into the state and were given cover by
suspected soldiers.

According to him, “I have heard that some politicians
are bringing in people from neighbouring states and I
find that very strange. I was told that somewhere in
Uromi, a PDP Leader brought in soldiers to provide
escort while they brought in people with buses from
neighbouring states to register in one of the Wards in
Uromi and I find that very worrisome because the
whole idea is not to import mercenary voters.
“The whole idea was to give an opportunity to those
who didn’t register before to register.

 I can understand if someone who is resident outside his
village wants to go back to the village for the purpose
of election but the villagers know everybody. So,
when you now import people who are not from the
village and register them, that distorts the numbers
and creates problems. It creates problem for the
electoral system”.

He said, “I want to appeal strongly to INEC to have a
way of monitoring the exercise to ensure that there
are no mercenary voters. In Uromi, the leaders
protested when the politician brought the mercenaries
to register, but because of the soldiers that were
escorting them, they had to leave. And these people
were brought in with several buses, they were brought
in buses owned by a popular transport company. This
is very disturbing and I hope that INEC will check
these kind of malpractices”, he stressed.

Also, the Governor says the time allotted for the
Continuous Voters Registration (CVR) exercise in the
State is inadequate due to the large number of people
who still wish to register and the allocation of one
Direct Data Capture Machine per ward to cater for the
large numbers.

The Governor said “there are lots of people who
cannot register because of logistic problems. In many
Wards, the machines were not available the first day
and the second day and it took time apparently for
INEC to prepare a lot of the machines before putting
them to the various Wards.

“As you can see for variety of reasons, there are lots
of people who wish to register. So because of INEC
not having enough Data Capture Machines, effectively,
in the first two days or so, in many cases, the
machines were not available”, he said.

Governor Oshiomhole said, “What is encouraging is
that many people want to register which for me is a
positive sign because it means people recognize the
need to have this power; the power to hire and fire
politicians and that is the most potent power in the
hand of very ordinary people and it is the only
instrument that equalizes every Nigerian. Whether you
are big or small, rich or poor, employed or
unemployed, on Election Day, it is one man one vote,
everybody is equal.

“The people want to register but because of logistics
challenges, INEC is not able to cope with the people
turning up. All of us must play our part to raise
awareness and encourage our people to take
advantage of this exercise so that they can retain
their power to hire, to fire and to discipline politicians
who they empower with their voter’s card.”