In spite of INEC guideline that party members and their loyalists should cease all campaigns 24 hours before Election Day, supporters of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) in Owan East and West Local Government Areas of Edo State, were on Saturday clad in offensive red and yellow arm bands respectively.

These supporters had a field day brandishing these arm bands before soldiers and other security agents who accorded them easy passage, as they moved from one place and another unleashing violence and mayhem on the people. Even members of the Neighbourhood Watch, employed by the LGs and those who were having their meals in the local food restaurants were not spared in this show of shame. It was only the timely postponement of the election by INEC that saved what could have resulted to an open brawl between these PDP supporters, said to be acting at the behest of the party’s senatorial candidate in Edo North, Yisa Braimoh and loyalists of the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN).

Angry at what he interpreted as a design by the PDP to deliberately cause confusion and frighten voters from the polling units, Hon Pally Iriase, an ACN House of Representatives candidate in Owan Federal Constituency, said this rabid display of intimidation of the peaceful and law abiding people was not acceptable.

A former Secretary to Edo State Government, (SSG), Iriase who decried this brazen harassment of people in Owan in the face of tacit consent by the security forces, said this attempt at intimidation and muzzling of voters must stop if the country is to witness a free and fair election. It would be recalled that a member of the ACN in Owan East LGA, Hon Andrew Osigwe cheated death by the whiskers on Wednesday night, when his SUV was sprayed with bullets by thugs suspected to be loyal to the PDP senatorial candidate, Senator, Yisa Braimoh.

Osigwe, a former councillor who was on his way to Afuze from Ihievbe, both in Owan East Local Government Area of Edo State, to the police headquarters at about 9pm to lodge complaints about the massing of hundreds of thugs in the Ihievbe home of Braimoh, was said to have been accosted by the armed thugs who barricaded the road around Ivbiogwuonu junction.

As he slowed down to avoid the barricades, his Nissan Pathfinder SUV 2005 model with registration number AG 94 AFZ, was engulfed in a volley of bullets, heavily shattering the passenger side of the vehicle. According to him, “As I slowed down to avoid the barricades, then they opened fire and shattered the right (passenger) side. The vehicle was heavily shattered. It’s a miracle how I survived the incident. If you see the car, you’ll not believe somebody that drove that vehicle survived. I’m yet to recover from the shock”.

A former loyalist of Senator Braimoh, Osigwe, also a prominent youth leader in Owan East Local Government Area, traced his present predicament to his last month’s decision to quit the PDP for the ACN due to broken promises. This he said was because the PDP did not offer his people any hope for the future. “I also felt that the Comrade Governor was doing a very good job in the state and needed to be supported so I opted for change”, he said.

Osigwe who earlier sent a petition to the AIG Zone 5, the state director of the State Security Service (SSS) and the Commissioner of Police on plan to eliminate him on March 23, has already reported the incident to the state police headquarters in Benin City. The state ACN chairman, Hon Thomas Okosun who received the news of the attack on Osigwe with awe and trepidation, said this incident was a vindication of the party’s earlier warning that the PDP was deliberately muzzling his members with the hope of whittling the party’s capacity in the forth coming election.

While saying that the party will not lower its guards in the face of this brazen affront, Okosun, a former speaker of the State House of assembly called on the police to immediately fish out the perpetrators of this dastardly crime.



http://newsdiaryonline.com/arm_band.htm

dapachez:


A former Secretary to Edo State Government, (SSG), Iriase who decried this brazen harassment of people in Owan in the face of tacit consent by the security forces, said this attempt at intimidation and muzzling of voters must stop if the country is to witness a free and fair election. It would be recalled that a member of the ACN in Owan East LGA, Hon Andrew Osigwe cheated death by the whiskers on Wednesday night, when his SUV was sprayed with bullets by thugs suspected to be loyal to the PDP senatorial candidate, Senator, Yisa Braimoh.

Osigwe, a former councillor who was on his way to Afuze from Ihievbe, both in Owan East Local Government Area of Edo State, to the police headquarters at about 9pm to lodge complaints about the massing of hundreds of thugs in the Ihievbe home of Braimoh, was said to have been accosted by the armed thugs who barricaded the road around Ivbiogwuonu junction.

As he slowed down to avoid the barricades, his Nissan Pathfinder SUV 2005 model with registration number AG 94 AFZ, was engulfed in a volley of bullets, heavily shattering the passenger side of the vehicle. According to him, “As I slowed down to avoid the barricades, then they opened fire and shattered the right (passenger) side. The vehicle was heavily shattered. It’s a miracle how I survived the incident. If you see the car, you’ll not believe somebody that drove that vehicle survived. I’m yet to recover from the shock”.

A former loyalist of Senator Bra[b]imoh, Osigwe, also a prominent youth leader in Owan East Local Government Area[/b], traced his present predicament to his last month’s decision to quit the PDP for the ACN due to broken promises. This he said was because the PDP did not offer his people any hope for the future. “I also felt that the Comrade Governor was doing a very good job in the state and needed to be supported so I opted for change”, he said.




http://newsdiaryonline.com/arm_band.htm

Is Osigwe an Indigine of Edo state?