PDP Accuses Oshiomhole of Influencing Tribunal Judgment

Reactions have started to trail the judgment delivered on the council poll conducted in Esan North East Local Government Area on Tuesday by the Edo State Local Government Election Tribunal with the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) declaring that the nullification was a “detour used by the state government to cover its track.”

 It would be recalled that the Edo State Independent Electoral Commission (EDSIEC) had declared the All Progressive Congress (APC), candidate Hon Sam Oboh, winner of the October 22, 2013 council election but the PDP candidate, John Yakubu and his party challenged the result of the election.

In a press statement issued Wednesday on the tribunal verdict, PDP said it has video clips of a meeting at the Edo State Government House, where top leaders of the APC reportedly rehearsed a plot. The script of the plot, said PDP, played out at the tribunal that culminated in the Tuesday verdict.

The statement was signed by the PDP chairman, Chief Dan Orbih.

 ”We are fully armed with graphic details of their evil plot. The original plot was for the Tribunal to declare the APC candidate winner of the election but that failed due to the good work of our team of lawyers and the witnesses we called on.

 ”They were, however, confronted by a deluge of evidence we presented  including EDSEIC Ward Returning Officers who attested to the fact that PDP won the elections. They quickly made a detour switched to the second plot which was to nullify the result. To say the least, we are disappointed with the Edo APC government and their principal actor, Adams Oshiomhole, in this unfolding drama,” PDP said.

 ”The verdict falls short of our expectations as our candidate would have been declared winner if justice had been served. Now that the tribunal has ruled that there was no collation of result,  from where did EDSIEC get the result it announced? We therefore call for the arrest and prosecution of the chairman the EDSIEC, Solomon Ogor, who criminally and fraudulently announced an APC manufactured result,” the party stressed.

 While pointing out that the PDP would decide in due course the next line of action, the statement added that the PDP should have been declared winner of the election.