The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the All Progressive Congress (APC) in Cross River State are on war path over destruction of bill boards and posters.
The APC governorship candidate, Senator John Owan Enoh had alleged that his bill boards and posters were destroyed by government agency and threatened to do same with PDP’s billboards and posters if such occurred again.
On Friday, some billboards and posters belonging to APC in the state were destroyed by unknown persons.
Similarly, some billboards and posters belonging to the PDP were equally destroyed by other unknown groups.
In a press release issued by the publicity secretary of APC, Mr Bassey Ita said “The attention of APC has been drawn to a media report credited to some officials of the PDP which attempts to deny the involvement of its paid agents in the destruction of our party’s Candidates’ billboards and posters in parts of the state.
“This denial is in our consideration, spurious and a cheap attempt by the PDP to exonerate itself from the evil and criminal agenda it is already known to perpetrate.
“We wish to emphasize here that much as this inglorious practice is inconsistent with the existing laws guiding the freedom of parties to campaign using paid advert spaces, we will as a law abiding party resist such attempt to further pull down our billboards and posters by hired agents of the PDP.
“We will therefore not accept such spurious claims and insinuations that a faction of our party is responsible for this criminal and evil exploit as currently made by the PDP.
“For the umpteenth time, we warn that we will resist any further attempt by anyone or group of persons in whatever guise who perpetrate such an obnoxious practice of pulling down our campaign materials,” he said.
The publicity secretary stressed that the party will continue to keep an eagle eye on billboards and posters with a view to arresting perpetrators and their paid agents of destruction.
“The law enforcement agents are again put on notice by virtue of this Press Release and are therefore urged to go all out for the purveyors of this dastardly act in the interest of the peace and stability of our state especially during the campaigns and the polls,” he stated.
Speaking with DAILY POST, the Director General, Cross River State Signage and Advertisement Agency (CRISSAA) Mr Stanley Nsemo said “Last year, the agency put up regulations in order to help privatised the outdoor sectors especially with the oncoming political activities.
“One of the things we noted was that during the political seasons, a lot of candidates put up papers posters across the state and after the season, we are left with difficulty of taking them out.
“Working with advertising practitioner council of Nigeria, and the law that established the agency, we were able to come up with a lot of rules that will work for every candidate, we send letters to every political parties letting them know what the rules were, that each participant, should understand.
“One of the rules was that no paper posters be allowed because paper posters have been banned for almost five years in the State and the ban has not been lifted. The rule was that every candidate must come and register with us and produced all what they have designed and once it is done, and money paid into government account, you will be given a letter permitting you to go ahead to do your work.
“In the case of Senator John Owan-Enoh, I have pictorial evidence of his campaign materials placed indiscriminately across the state, I have also proof of letters we have written to his campaign organization and APC letting them know that their candidates violated our laws, we did that to SDP and we wrote to all the political parties that violated the laws, there were no reply from any of them.
“The SDP violated the law, PDP also violated the law, the same thing happened to Senator Gershom Bassey of PDP and we brought down his advert.
“He said Senator Owan-Enoh engaged an agency that posted on a board which the owner owed the state government a three year fees. If they have come to us we would have told them that the board was in dispute and has been marked down.
“The law of the land must be obeyed especially by the candidate. They are branding in the central and northern part of the state and if we impose another fine, they will say that we have not done the correct thing, nobody is above the law,” he stated.
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