Olumide Akpata, the Labour Party governorship candidate in Edo State, has accused PDP supporters of smashing his campaign billboards.
Speaking to journalists in Benin on Friday, Akpata described the action as a desperate attempt to stifle his party’s message of optimism and positive transformation for the state.
He said that saboteurs had attempted to undermine the party’s campaigns on numerous occasions.
“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 stated.
He mentioned threats and the actual removal of the party’s billboards, and identified the impacted local government areas as Ovia North East, Egor, Oredo, and Ikpoba Okha, adding that the party has received threats that the days of its billboard at Ramat Park are over.
“Billboards that I, as a law-abiding citizen and gubernatorial candidate, legitimately paid for and put across the length and breadth of Benin City have come under fire from local government officials who are agents of the incumbent governor, Godwin Obaseki.
“In the Oredo Local Government Area, two of my billboards were severely vandalized, defiled, and eventually pulled down, with explicit threats of future removals.
The situation is as severe and intolerable in Ovia North East, where these merchants of antidemocratic forces have blindly damaged two more billboards featuring my image and campaign messaging,” he stated.
Akpata stated that, just as no notice was given prior to the removal, no rationale was provided following the removal of the billboard.
He also claimed that the party had paid the appropriate payments to accredited service providers for the billboards.
“We have asked our service providers if they have paid all the regulations. “They gave us receipts and showed us,” he claimed.