Labour Party gubernatorial candidate in Edo State, Olumide Akpata, has accused supporters of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) of obliterating his campaign billboards.
Briefing journalists in Benin, Akpata said the action was a frantic ploy to silence his party’s message of hope and positive change for the state.
He alleged that the party has encountered various attempts to sabotage its campaigns by saboteurs.
“Over the past few days, we have witnessed a coordinated, premeditated, and insidious assault on our constitutionally guaranteed rights to free speech, political expression, and the fundamental tenets of democracy itself,” Akpata said.
He cited instances of threats, actual pulling down of the party’s billboards and listed the impacted local government areas to include Ovia Northeast, Egor, Oredo and Ikpoba Okha, summing up that the party has received threats that the days of its billboard at the Ramat Park are numbered.
“Billboards that I, as a law-abiding citizen and a gubernatorial candidate, legally paid for and erected across the length and breadth of Benin City have come under attack from the local government areas, who are agents of the incumbent governor, Godwin Obaseki.
“In Oredo Local Government Area, two of my billboards were viciously vandalised, defaced, and ultimately torn down, with explicit threats of more removals to come.
“The situation is equally dire and unacceptable in Ovia Northeast, where two more billboards bearing my visage and campaign messages were mindlessly destroyed by these merchants of antidemocratic forces,” he said.
Akpata revealed that, similarly as no advance notice was given prior to the removal, not a glaringly obvious explanation was given after the pulling down of the billboard.
He likewise kept up with the fact that the party had paid the necessary expenses to certified service providers for the billboards.
“We have asked our service providers, have you paid all the regulations? they’ve given us receipts, they’ve shown us,” he said.
