I didn’t threaten collation officer –Deputy gov-elect

 

 

The Deputy Governor-elect of Edo State, Philip  Shuaibu,  has denied threatening the Collation Officer for Etsako West Local Government Area, Prof. Adewole Atere, when the Independent National Electoral Commission was  collating  the  results  of Wednesday’s governorship poll in the area.

All Progressives Congress  candidate Godwin Obaseki won the election by polling 319, 483 votes to beat his closest rival Osagie Ize-Iyamu of the Peoples Democratic Party, who got 253, 173 votes.

Shuaibu,  who represents Etsako federal constituency in the House of Representatives, also denied leading armed thugs to harass any electoral officer.

Atere had during the presentation of election results from the 18 local government areas alleged that he and another INEC official  were asked by Shuaibu to manipulate  the result sheet.

The electoral official said, “It was the same candidate of yours who accosted the CO in Unit 11 with about six guns and drove him to the corner of the collation centre, forcing him to mutilate. I did not mutilate any paper; my papers are here.

“Number two, this same candidate went to  INEC office  to repeat the same thing – and later came to the collation centre where I served with 10 gun-toting men, threatening to kill all of us.

“I want to say that this same candidate  told the man, who handled Ward 11, that he was a dead man.”

But the Shuaibu dismissed the allegations, saying they were  shocking and    false.

The APC chief  said on Thursday, “I was shocked when I watched it on TV; I was wondering if it was somebody else that was talking. Everything he said was completely  the opposite to what happened. And thank God that the DSS, police and other security agents were there when all these things were done at the collation centre.”

He added, “It started at the ward collation centres, when the young man working with INEC made a mistake in his calculation and our agents drew his attention to the mistake and he corrected them.

“But at the level of the local government level, the PDP wanted to take advantage of it, that those units must be cancelled. The same collation officer that went on air lying that I was harassing him with a gun is the same man who promised that the matter would  be sorted out in Benin.

“So, we left the collation centre  with the  mindset that we were leaving for Benin to take a decision on the matter,  because the duty of the collation officer in that ward was to collate what was given to him and not to cancel and there was no element of single violence in my unit that would result to issue of cancellation of any result.”