Edo Group Vows to Reject APC at Saturday’s House of Assembly Polls

•Alleges Tinubu’s declaration as president-elect, rape of democracy

The National Coalition of Edo Voters have vowed to reject candidates of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the March 11 House of Assembly elections in the state, to express their displeasure over the gross manipulation of results of the presidential and National Assembly elections by the party in favour of its candidate, Bola Ahmed Tinubu.

Speaking at a press conference in Benin City, the Edo State capital, the group rejected the outcome of the poll, noting that the declaration of the APC candidate as the winner of the poll by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) was a rape of democracy.

Convener of the group, Olu Martins, while decrying APC’s desperation to usurp democracy and foist their candidate on Nigerians against their will, urged Edo voters to reject the party at the forthcoming March 11 House of Assembly elections.

He said, “We only had one problem in Nigeria, the APC, but after the election in February, it became two problems – APC and INEC. They believe that after a few days, Nigerians will be tired of the unrest following the declaration of Tinubu as the president-elect and go back to their normal lives. We only want INEC to declare the original result of the presidential election.”

The convener added, “We are preparing and shining our eyes for the elections come Saturday, March 11 against the APC and INEC. You can vote for any other party but APC. They should not get even one vote from any polling unit. Let’s tell them that after raping us in broad daylight, they cannot come again to kidnap us.

“If there is any misconduct in the coming election, we will march to the INEC office directly. We were taken unawares in the February 25th election.”

On his part, co-convener of the coalition, Christopher Ojeikere, said, “We want to register our strong protest against how Mahmoud Yakubu gave our mandate to the wrong person.”

Also, Osas Okhilua, added, “I urge you to come out en masse to vote come Saturday, March 11 so that we can gradually start to reclaim the sovereignty of the people of Nigeria.

“Our tolerance for evil has become too much in this country, right from independence. Some persons who have held this country to ransom have continued to subvert the mandate of the people, sabotaging our efforts.”