The Peoples Democratic Party and the opposition All Progressives Congress on Friday engaged each other in a war of words over the arrest of 181 persons by officers of the Anambra State Police Command.

While the APC insists that those arrested were duly elected election observers, the PDP aligns with the preliminary report by the police that they are political thugs.

In a statement signed by its National Publicity Secretary, Chief Olisa Metuh, the PDP asked the police and the public to hold the APC responsible in the event of any breakdown of law and order during Saturday’s election.

“181 heavily armed political thugs from APC controlled Imo state ready to be deployed to Anambra, has clinically exposed APC’s plot to cause mayhem and unleash violence during the election,” the party alleged.

The ruling party said the plot was part of the “grand design” by leaders of the APC to disrupt and discredit the election since they discovered that Anambra people have rejected their party.

However, the APC said the whole affair was part of a plot by an increasingly partisan police force to give the ruling party an edge over others.

The APC statement which was signed by its Interim National Publicity Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, said, those arrested were accredited election monitors who are members of the Justice and Equality Organization, an INEC-accredited election monitoring NGO from Osun State.

“With INEC having trained key officials of the accredited election monitoring NGOs, those trained are now training their members in readiness for the election. Those trained by INEC are in Owerri.

“Those whom the police have labelled as thugs are members of the Justice and Equality Organization. They are in Owerri for training ahead of the election.”

According to the APC, the choice of Owerri for the training was due to its proximity to Anambra as well as its affordable hotel costs.

The APC equally said, “None of them is a member of the APC, despite the insinuation by the police, and none is armed, because you don’t need guns to monitor elections. Any weapon exhibited by the police must have been procured by them to justify their gaffe.”

The PDP thinks otherwise. It expressed the opinion that those arrested were heavily armed thugs who were being deployed from APC controlled states with instructions to unleash mayhem and disrupt the elections.

While commending the police for the arrests, the PDP said those arrested represented only a very small fraction of the population of armed thugs assigned to Anambra State for the purpose.

The APC on its part said the police was simply acting out the script of the PDP by arresting election monitors from Osun State and labelling them as thugs.

http://www.punchng.com/news/anambra-elections-pdp-apc-bicker-over-police-arrests/

Hmm