A faction of the All Progressives Congress, APC, in Edo State loyal to its National Chairman, Comrade Adams Oshiomhole, said it has uncovered alleged plot by Governor Godwin Obaseki to astronomically inflate the number of COVID-19 victims in the state.
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Obaseki and Oshiomhole have been entangled in an open and toxic row over who controls the APC in Edo with the upcoming governorship primary of the party in the state a decider.
The current discord is centred on the mode the primary will take with the ex-governor’s camp touting direct primary while that of his successor are rooting for indirect citing the need to contain the spread of COVID-19 through social distancing.
In a rebuke of the position of the Obaseki’s faction, the factional State Secretary of the party, Lawrence Okah, on behalf of Oshiomhole’s camp told the Chairman of Independent Electoral Commission in a letter he addressed to the electoral umpire that the governor is allegedly up to something.
The letter read in part: “The Governor of Edo State, Mr. Godwin Obaseki, has concluded plan to scuttle the primary election of the All Progressives Congress scheduled to hold on 22, June 2020. The pretext is that if held, the primary election will escalate cases of COVID-19 infections in Edo state.
“The irrefutable information is that the Governor has directed that medical tests be carried out on fictitious persons of up to 300,000 (three hundred thousand). The plan is to deliberately increase the number of persons declared to be infected with COVID-19 as justification to lock down Edo State throughout the period scheduled for the primary election in the state.”
