BY Ebunoluwa Olafusi
Olumide Akpata, governorship candidate of the Labour Party (LP) in Edo state, has accused supporters of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) of destroying his campaign billboards.
Akpata said the action was a desperate attempt to silence his party’s message of hope and positive change for the state.
In a statement on Friday, Akpata alleged that the party has experienced different attempts at undermining 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.
“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 North East, where two more billboards bearing my visage and campaign messages were mindlessly destroyed by these merchants of antidemocratic forces.
“In Ikpoba Okha, my campaign team has received unambiguous threats that our billboards in that area will also be targeted for elimination.”
He described the actions as “the desperate, last-ditch tactics of an intolerant regime terrified of the winds of change blowing across our dear state”.
“A regime paralysed by the fear of the people’s burgeoning yearning for a new direction, a new vision, and a new era of progressive and inclusive governance,” he added.
“By resorting to the destruction of my campaign materials, which I have legally and legitimately paid for with hard-earned resources, Governor Obaseki, and his handlers have clearly shown themselves to be anti-democratic forces intolerant of divergent voices, dissenting opinions, and the fundamental principles of pluralism that undergird any true democracy worth the name.”
He warned perpetrators to desist from the contemptible acts, saying he will not be cowed by “cowardly tactics”.
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