Some opposition governorship candidates for the November 18th election in Anambra State have condemned the pulling down of their campaign billboards by people suspected to be agents of the state government.
The peoples Democratic party candidate, Mr Oseloka Obaze on Thursday in Awka told journalists that he was reliably informed that Obiano instructed the Anambra State Signage and Advertising Agency (ANSAA) to pull down billboards belonging to political opponents.
He said, “It is painful that after paying the required fee to ANSAA, the state government still directed them to pull down our billboards in Awka, Onitsha and other locations’’, Obaze said.
He said that his supporters had brought reports of numerous destruction of PDP billboards and his campaign posters by the officials of state Signage agency who move around with official vehicles with the inscription, “Willie is working’’ and accompanied by security officers to damage billboards belonging to his party.
According to Obaze, “On Sept. 27 I paid the agency with receipt No: 0003951 and in spite the proof of payment, government choose to damage the billboards they collected money for.’’
Also, Dr. Chira Obiora, the Director-General of the Campaign Organisation, Mr Godwin Ezeemo, the guber candidate of Progressive People’s Alliance (PPA) also lamented that PPA candidate’s was also being destroyed by persons suspected to be supporters of Obiano.
“We have been recording this problem of our billboards being destroyed by government officials in spite collecting monies from us and the problem is getting more intense as we close in on the Nov.18 election date”, he said.
Meanwhile, Mr Jude Emecheta, the Managing Director of Anambra State Signage and Advertisement Agency, the chairman of the agency said the reason for the poster fee was for the clean-up of defaced environment after the elections.
He denied that the agency was responsible for the destruction of billboards, saying that only candidates whondefaulted in payment have had their billboards removed.
“Our outdoor Advertising workers are officially saddled with the duties of pulling down any billboard that is indebted to the agency.
“In order not to be seen to be supporting the government in power, we reduced the signage fee from 9 million naira to N1million in each zone’’, he said.
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