The PDP, in a statement issued yesterday by its Publicity Secretary, Mr Chris Nehikhare, called the attention of the Civil Society Organizations in Nigeria, the international community, religious organizations, traditional rulers, election monitoring committees and all lovers of democracy to the worrisome development.
According to Nehikhare, the tactic of the APC is to break the spirits of its members or to keep them out of circulation until after the election.
“Governor Adams Oshiomhole has instructed the Police to launch a large scale unwarranted arrest and detention of our vibrant youths across the three senatorial districts on the prompting of APC members who have turned to “pointers” for the police, and acting a script.
“In Edo South, many of our youths have had to be creative to evade this type of Gestapo operations. In some cases, their parents are arrested in their stead and made to pay huge sums of money as bail!
“It is interesting to note that the state governor and leader of the APC in Edo State, Comrade Adams Oshiomhole was quoted in the media as threatening that members of our party should prepare for more arrests and prosecution.
“While we take this as the desperate stand of the captain of a sinking ship, we want to reassure our dedicated and determined members and teeming supporters that we stand with them in the dark moments of their persecution in the hands of the Police who have obviously become partisan and are being used in an attempt to frustrate an idea which time has come, which is the resolve of Edo people to “change the change” that has brought unimaginable hardship, humiliation, frustration and despondency upon the land.”