In a scathing response to the Edo State chapter of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Crusoe Osagie, the Special Adviser on Media to Governor Godwin Obaseki, has denounced the party's recent attacks as mere "diversionary tactics" ahead of the September 21 gubernatorial election.
According to reports from PUNCH, the APC had on Saturday accused the Obaseki administration of "monumental corruption," urging the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to investigate several top government officials.
The acting APC chairman, Jarret Tenebe, also criticized the state's transition to a paperless governance system, alleging it was a "criminal plan" to destroy incriminating documents.
However, in a statement released on Sunday, Osagie dismissed these claims as desperate attempts to "cajole the Edo people" and distract from the "obvious and disgraceful defects" of the APC's gubernatorial candidate.
"Clearly, the APC's only strategy ahead of the September 21 election is to deploy diversionary tactics and manufacture alternative facts in the hope that this will remove the spotlight from the obvious and disgraceful defects of their candidate, which has made the election a lost cause," Osagie said.
Addressing the APC's criticism of the state's e-governance Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system, Osagie asserted that the party had exposed its "ignorance and betrayed its phobia for technology and forward-thinking."
He explained that the ERP system was implemented to drive transparency, accountability, and digitization in the government, and that all files had been archived and were easily retrievable.
Osagie further accused the APC of being "lost in its quest to plunder public resources" and being "scared that an ERP system would make it impossible for them to steal without a trace."
He suggested that the party was attempting to "demonize the system" to allow for the continuation of "an old, dubious and opaque system of administration."