The Gubernatorial Candidate of the Labour party Olumide Akpata has lamented that several materials the party is using for the campaign are under serious attack.
Some of the materials including billboards which according to Akpata are due and legally built to help inform the good people of Edo on the promises of the party.
In a chat with newsmen in the state capital Benin City, Akpata said that the action was a desperate attempt to silence his party’s message of hope and positive change for the state.
He also 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.
He cited cases of threats, actual pulling down of the party’s billboards and listed the affected local government areas to include Ovia North east, Egor, Oredo and Ikpoba Okha, adding 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 North East, where two more billboards bearing my visage and campaign messages were mindlessly destroyed by these merchants of antidemocratic forces,” he said.
Akpata however noted that, prior to the removal there was no warning and hence no reason was provided after the pulling down of the billboard.
He also maintained that the party had paid the required fees to accredited 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.
The Edo State Gubernatorial election is drawing closer as it was scheduled to hold on September 21, 2024 as tension begins to gather momentum.
