The People’s Democratic Party, PDP, has distanced itself from the alleged rigging of the June 16, 2014 governorship election in Ekiti State and the controversies generate by an audio clip in which some ranking members of the party discussed how the party would rig the elections in connivance with a serving Brigadier General, Aliyu Momoh.
Ekiti state Governor, Ayodele Fayose; a former Minister of State for Defence, Musiliu Obanikoro, former Senator Iyiola Omisore were the senior PDP members heard on the tape.
The actors, though earlier denied being involved, later confirmed that their voices were on the tape. They however claimed that they were discussing how to prevent the All Progressives Congress (APC) from rigging the election.
In an interview, the spokesman of the PDP, Olisa Metuh said the party did not sanction any illegal activities and was not privy to any plans to rig the governorship elections in its favour.
“Any tape whether real or imaginary can be concocted in this digital world; we don’t know what is real and what is not,” Mr Metuh said. “I also believe that the actors in their personal capacity will be able to talk about what really happened.
“As a political party, we have never engaged in planning or getting involved in any conspiracy to rig elections or alter the will of the people,” Mr. Metuh said.
Metuh claimed that the PDP leadership had demonstrated in the last two years that it was committed to free, fair and credible elections.
While admitting that he had not listened to to the leaked audio clip, Metuh doubted the authenticity of the tape.
“We had elections in five states in the last two years, PDP won in only one state; how comes its just that one that we won, that a tape is suddenly surfacing to say we planned rigging.
“Why did we not plan rigging in Edo, Ondo, Anambra and Osun? How comes the only one that we won is the one they want to tarnish? It is a calculated attempt to sway the minds of Nigerians that the PDP is not capable of winning in a free and fair election.
“Our people are even raising the fact that we were rigged out in Osun; but we are not engaged in propaganda, we are not engaged in manufacturing tapes, We won election in Ekiti state because of the love of our party, and the massive support that our gubernatorial candidate, Ayo Fayose, enjoys in the entire state.
The PDP spokesperson said the Ekiti tape saga is just another propaganda by the APC, saying if the APC is sure of the authenticity of the tape, it should approach the law courts to seek redress.
“In this era of campaign, where you have a lot of propaganda, anybody with any concrete evidence can go to either the law enforcement agencies or the law courts to seek redress.
“For us, we are more involved in the campaign than propaganda; our first thought actually is that it is simply just propaganda, it is only the court that can decide if on the matter of Ekiti election, just like the tribunal and court of appeal have decided. If they think there is fresh evidence, they can go to court,” he said.
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