The Jos Metropolitan Development Board says it removed campaign billboards of politicians because they did not comply with rules and regulations guiding the placement of billboards in Plateau State.
JMDB General Manager, Mathias Hata, told the News Agency of Nigeria on Thursday in Jos that the board had stringent rules guiding the use of billboard and had resolved to implement them fully.
Hata was reacting to the allegations by the Peoples Democratic Party that the board had removed all its campaign billboards.
The party, through Yiljap Abraham, the spokesman of the Senator Jerry Useni governorship campaign organisation, had alleged that the Plateau State Government had ordered the removal of its campaign billboards, and described the action “political victimisation”.
Abraham particularly decried the “selective” removal of PDP billboards, and claimed that billboards of the rival All Progressives Congress candidates were spared.
He accused the state government of “trying to provoke a political crisis”, urging the Independent National Electoral Commission and security agencies to intervene.
But Hata said the removal had nothing to do with the political parties involved.
He said: “Governor Simon Lalong complied with the rules and regulations by paying N700,000 to the board to obtained the mandatory permit to erect the bill boards.
“The politicians complaining to you did not do the needful.
“They did not obtain the permission to place the billboards.
“They merely placed their billboards on every available space.
“We cannot have a city like that.
“The JMDB will not allow that.”
According to Hata, some of Lalong’s billboards were removed and relocated because he had followed due process in putting them up.
“When we checked and discovered that the governor has paid, but placed his billboard in a wrong place, we relocated it for him,” he said.
Hata said that youths in some of the areas were not happy with the removal of the boards and made several attempts to stop JMDB officers from discharging their duties.
“The opposition parties are not happy, but if they can comply with the rules of the board, their billboards will be placed at the right positions,” he explained.
NAN.