Anambra Guber: Opposition Candidates Frown at Obiano Over Pulling Down of Campaign Billboards, Posters

Posted by African Examiner Latest Headlines, News Across Nigeria, News From The State Monday, October 23rd, 2017

From Ignatius Okpara, Awka

(AFRICAN EXAMINER) – Ahead of the November 18 gubernatorial election in Anambra state, Southeast- Nigeria, Some opposition governorship candidates have decried the continued pulling down of their campaign billboards in parts of the state, by those suspected to be agents of the incumbent governor, Willy Obiano.

Obiano, came into office via the ruling crisis ridden- All progressives Grand Alliance, APGA, and also seeking a re- election under same political platform.

Condemning the barbaric act weekend in Awka, the Anambra state capital, while speaking with newsmen, the Peoples Democratic party PDP candidate, Mr Oseloka Obaze, said that he was reliably informed that Obiano instructed the Anambra State Signage and Advertising Agency (ANSAA) to pull down billboards belonging to political opponents.

“It is painful that after paying the required fee to ANSAA, the state government still directed them to pull down our billboards in Awka, Onitsha and other locations’’, Obaze lamented.

According to him, their supporters had brought reports of numerous destruction of PDP billboards and his campaign posters by the officials of state Signage agency who move around with official vehicles with the inscription, “Willie is working’’ and accompanied by security officers to damage billboards belonging to his party.

He said “On Sept. 27, I paid the agency with receipt No: 0003951 and in spite the proof of payment, government choose to damage the billboards they collected money for.’’

In his own reaction, Dr. Chira Obiora, the Director-General of the Campaign Organisation, of Mr Godwin Ezeemo, the governorship candidate of Progressive People’s Alliance (PPA) also condemned the act, saying that the billboards of their candidate’s was also being destroyed by persons suspected to be supporters of Obiano.

He said: “We have been recording this problem of our billboards being destroyed by government officials in spite collecting monies from us and the problem is getting more intense as we close in on the Nov.18 election date”.

However, the Managing Director of Anambra State Signage and Advertisement Agency, Mr. Jude Emecheta, denied the allegation, insisting that the reason for the poster fee was for the clean-up of defaced environment after the elections.

He said it is not true that his organization was responsible for the destruction of billboards, stating that only candidates who defaulted in payment have had their billboards removed.

“Our outdoor Advertising workers are officially saddled with the duties of pulling down any billboard that is indebted to the agency.

He disclosed that “In order not to be seen to be supporting the government in power, we reduced the signage fee from 9 million naira to N1 million in each zone’’.