The Edo State Residence Electoral Commissioner, Dr. Johnson Alalibo Sinikiem, has declared that the Governor Godwin Obaseki’s faction of the Edo State PDP did not conduct any congress or primary.
Responding to a petition written against him to the police by the State PDP chairman, Hon. Tony Aizegbemi, the REC said that all due processes were followed in the correspondences between INEC and the Edo State PDP secretariat during the congresses and primaries of the party.
He told the police that the commission in exercising its powers under the Electoral Act, duly monitored the congresses and primaries of the Legacy PDP inline with the provisions of the PDP constitution and Electoral Act (As Amended).
The REC also tendered all the necessary documents relating to the conduct of the congresses and primaries of the Edo PDP. He reinstated in his statement that the Godwin Obaseki’s faction did not conduct any congress or primary and that INEC never monitored any congress or primary from the governor’s faction.
It will be recalled that the Edo State REC was arrested on the orders of the Edo State governor, following a frivolous petition written by the PDP State chairman, accusing him of forging and doctoring documents related to the Edo State PDP congresses and primaries.
Sources said that the Governor and his people were taken aback when they discovered that the Legacy PDP complied with all the processes and requirements of the constitution and the Electoral Act in the conduct of their congresses and primaries while the governor’s faction had nothing to show.
When the Governor was told by the PDP NWC the implications of the development in view of the recent appeal Court judgement, an angry and frustrated Obaseki instructed the PDP State Chairman to put up a petition to the police against the REC.
By Amb Tony Okonigene