PDP plans to bribe NYSC members

The All Progressives Congress has accused the Peoples Democratic Party of planning to bribe some members of the National Youth Service Corps to rig the August 9 governorship election holding in Osun State.

The Director of Publicity, Research and Strategy of the APC in Osun State, Mr. Kunle Oyatomi, claimed in a statement in Osogbo, on Sunday, that some PDP leaders held a meeting with 74 corps members who would serve as ad hoc staff of the Independent National Electoral Commission during the election.

The APC statement read, “The latest is that the PDP has penetrated the ranks of NYSC members that INEC intends to use as electoral officers. Already, 70 of them have been compromised to look the other way when the PDP agents use other people’s voter cards to vote.

“The PDP is reported to have adopted two methods; beef up the number of uniformed men from other states to 150,000 and spread them across the state to vote by force; and produce as many other mercenary voters as they can bring to the polling units to cast votes with other people’s cards.

“The first method was successfully used in Ekiti in conjunction with prevention of media presence in several collation centres where collation of votes was allegedly manipulated in favour of the PDP.

“In all these, the alleged complicity of INEC in corrupting and manipulating the process was palpable.

“With this secret let out of the bag, youth corps members acting as electoral officers will now come under close scrutiny during the election and party agents and observers will be further armed with this information to prevent the PDP fraud at the polls.”

But the Chairman of the PDP in the state, Alhaji Gani Olaoluwa, when contacted debunked the allegation.

He said the PDP had earlier raised the allegation that the APC had concluded plans to sew NYSC uniforms for the members of Osun Youth Empowerment Programme who they intend to use to rig the election in favour of Aregbsola.

He said, “Everybody is aware that we revealed their plan to use OYES cadets as NYSC members to assist them to manipulate the election.

“They are saying this now to save their face and divert attention. We are calling on INEC not to allow the APC to bribe any of them to allow OYES to rig for the APC.

“They are also planning to use “State Boys” to rig. They have sewed fake police uniforms for them and one of them was arrested with a uniform of an ASP in Ilesa. The police should watch out for some fake policemen that they are planning to use.”

The Resident Electoral Commissioner in the state, Mr. Olusegun Agbaje, when contacted on the telephone by our correspondent, said it was not possible for any corps member to rig for any party.

He said that security personnel would be at each polling unit just as party agents would be there to watch what the polling clerks did.