The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Presidential Campaign Council in Kogi State has accused the government of enacting the Kogi State Signage Law in secrecy in order to use it as a linchpin to unleash violence on the opposition in the state.

The Council said it was worried because the public was not aware of the liable target of the law, whether it was political parties or their candidates.

The Council which claimed that PDP became aware of the existence of the signage law which he alleged was hurried put together, through the APC in the state, equally complained that fees imposed by the law were practically beyond the reach of the poor.

The statement reads: “It has come to the attention of the Kogi PDP Presidential Campaign Council of a press release which acknowledges the provisions of the Signage Bill hurriedly put together by the Kogi State House of Assembly and signed into law recently.

“In the release, the Media Director of the All Progressives Congress (APC) calls for its implementation by its Campaign Councils at all levels. In its justification, the Directorate finds nothing wrong with the law, which, according to it, was meant to increase the Internally-Generated Revenue (IGR) of the State and sanitize the environment.

“However, the Media Head of the state Campaign Council, Austin Ochu, says for any discerning mind, raising the signage fee for billboards beyond the reach of the opposition parties that has unfettered access to state resources remains preposterous.

“It is indeed curious to know that the law is making its debut at the dawn of electioneering where it is evident that the due process of making such law was not observed, thus making the whole process to be shrouded in secrecy.

“This raises some fundamental questions as to where and when the invitation to the public hearing were advertised and whether the ingredients of the said law also affect other advertisers who are not politicians.

“Is the law targeted at political candidates or political parties? Since APC, with unfettered access to the State treasury, has already undertaken to pay, is it doing so on behalf of its candidates or the law requires the party to pay?

“If the law is targeted at the parties, can candidates be held responsible and penalized for the infringement by political parties and vice-versa, since they are distinct juristic entities?

“Is the regulation of the activities of political parties under the exclusive or concurrent legislative lists? Is the State empowered to legislate to regulate the activities of political parties, define offences for them and prescribe penalties under the law?

“These are questions that beg for answers and which are indicative that the APC in the State have engineered a deliberate discriminatory policy contrived to provide excuses to unleash violence on other members of other political parties under the guise of enforcing the law.

“This gives credence to the outcry of Labour Party last week when the Bill boards of its House of Representatives candidate in Olamaboro Federal Constituency was vandalized by identified thugs of APC allegedly deployed by the Deputy Governor, as well as that of PDP candidate, Joshua Adejoh, whose bill boards were also destroyed.

“By this law, the APC is playing the ostrich and displaying vestiges of a drowning party looking to hold on to any flowing object, to stay alive.

“Having failed abysmally to deliver the dividends of democracy to the people in the last more than seven years, the electorate is looking up to the next election to make a bold statement, and to tell the world that no amount of intimidation and unpopular law can suppress the will of the people to consign APC in the State to the dustbin of history.

“The grandstanding of the APC in the State notwithstanding, the electorate in the State are set to prove that winning an election is not a function of the billboards mounted by the government candidates but how much the government has done to curry the sympathy and confidence of the people it is set out to govern.

“The State Assembly, in its own characteristic manner, has proven its time-tested image of puppet assembly in the hands of the APC government that can be used to churn out unpopular laws against the people they were elected to serve.

“The mounting of billboards across the length and breadth of the State only by the APC candidates is a clear indication that democracy is on holiday in Kogi State.

“It will only take the will of a determined electorate to restore sanity in this clime, and the PDP in the State has no doubt that the first test of that resolve as a people is around the corner, come February, 2023.”