One of the supporters of Peter Obi, the Presidential Candidate of the Labour Party (LP), who was attacked on his way to the Tafawa Balewa Square in Lagos, on February 11 for the grand finale of the party’s presidential campaign in Lagos, has finally lost one of his hands as a result.
Akin Osuntokun, Director General of the Labour Party Presidential Campaign Council (LP-PCC), who revealed this on Tuesday, while appearing on The 2023 Verdict, a Channels Television special election programme on Tuesday, bemoaned the parlous situation of insecurity in the state regarding the elections, especially the targetting of the party’s members by thugs.
It was also a day the party stalwart pleaded with the new Commissioner of Police in Lagos, Idowu Owohunwa to check the activities of the Resident Electoral Commissioner of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) in Lagos, Olusegun Agbaje and disallow any form of electoral “subversion.”
Osuntokun, speaking about about his rating of INEC’s preparation ahead of the February 25 and March 11 polls, the LP campaign boss, he said: “I won’t score the preparation a 100 percent. There are some factors that challenge that conclusion. One of that is the predisposition to voter suppression through violence. We have been a victim of that, especially in Lagos in which INEC people actually responded to people looking for their PVCs (Permanent Voter Cards) discriminatorily.
“When we had the rally in Lagos, our supporters were prevented in certain areas from coming to the Tafawa Balewa Square and some of them were injured. As we speak one of them has had his hand amputated. So, of course, when you take these into consideration, you cannot be confident that this is going to work well.”
Osuntokun also expressed reservations about the Bimodal Voter Registration System (BVAS), the technology that will be used for the accreditation and authentication of voters come 2023, saying: “Once the fact that the BVAS or the electronic transmission introduction to the system is supposed to preclude the possibility of over-voting or something like that but according to the judgement of the tribunal on the Osun State election that was conducted a while ago, the tribunal nullified the victory of the PDP on account of over-voting, now were does that come in?”
The Lagos State Police Command had condemned that February 11 attack as “reprehensible” and vowed to get to the bottom of the incident.
