The campaign organisation of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) Governorship Candidate for Lagos State, Mr. Jimi Agbaje, has taken the All Progressives Congress (APC) to task for denying plans to use electoral staff to rig the April 11 governorship polls.
Agbaje’s camp was responding to a reaction by the Lagos APC Publicity Secretary, Mr. Joe Igbokwe, who he said not only denied the rigging allegation, but poured abuses on the accusers.
“As usual, the APC spokesman went banal and off the hook in denying the obvious and the glaring. But we have done our homework and we can substantiate what we alleged with evidence,” Agbaje’s Director of Media and Publicity, Felix Oboagwina, noted in a statement yesterday.
Agbaje’s Campaign Organisation advanced its case by providing a scanned letter, which it said was typical of written and verbal instructions and invitations issued to teachers and civil servants in the state.
“How do you explain a letter from an arm of a state government or local government bureaucracy chanting the APC slogan of, ‘APC! Change!’, the organisation quipped.
“And that same letter contains a barefaced warning that those invited must attend personally, and specifically highlights the fact that this was a programme organised for the benefit of APC Candidates.
“Let Igbokwe deny that the APC Senatorial Candidate for Lagos West, Honourable Adeola Olamilekan Solomon (alias ‘Yayi’), did not hold a forum televised on the newscast of the LTV and TVC last week, and to which hundreds of civil servants were compelled to attend.”
Felix Oboagwin, in the statement, urged Lagosians to judge between the hard evidence available and Igbokwe’s bamboozling vituperation.”
“As has been his style since 2007, when he mounted the seat of political media relations, Igbokwe went personal, bizarre and licentious. In his typically hollow buffoonery and arrogance, a man who knows me very well and with whom I have sat on TV shows, calls me ‘one Felix!’
“In typical Igbokwe style, issues were ignored and the APC spokesman just vomited abusive and pedestrian words, like a herbal medicine hawker.”
The spokesman to Agbaje alleged that the APC had infiltrated the ranks of Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, ad-hoc electoral clerks and supervisors with card-carrying APC members.
Agbaje’s camp stated that Executive Secretaries in the 57 councils had been instructed to “deliver” their local governments at all costs.
“These are manifestations of old tricks, and we shall leave no stone unturned to puncture all such shenanigans”.
Agbaje Campaign Organisation also provided a scanned letter, dated 2nd February 2015 and issued by the Lagos Mainland Local Government Education Authority, asking teaching and non-teaching staff to attend a programme organised by the local government for APC candidates in the council.
The letter titled SENSITISATION AND AWARENESS CREATION ON HITCH-FREE ELECTION 2015, bore the signature of the Education Secretary, Adetona Bisi Lawrence.
It reads: “The entire teaching and non-teaching staff, the Parents Forum, the School-Based Management Committee (SBMC) and the children of Mainland Local Government Education Authority humbly invite you to the political awareness progamme which we organize in honour of our All Progressive Congress (APC) candidates under the jurisdiction of the above-named Local Government Area.
“Please, come along with the following people: Assistant Head Teacher, two teaching staff, two non-teaching staff, SBMC Chairman and Treasurer, PF Chairman and the Secretary.
“The programme is as follows:
“Venue: Lagos Mainland LGEA Secretariat/All Saints Primary School Premises
“Date: 10th February 2015
“Time: 12.00pm
“Your presence at the programme will be highly appreciated.
“Please, No representation.”
“APC: Change
“Mainland: Progress
“Lagos: Itesiwaju Ipinle Eko
“Nigeria: Unity and Progress.”
Agbaje’s camp concluded that the above was part of the grand scheme by APC to rig the April 11, 2015 governorship polls and others in the state.
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