The All Progressives Grand Alliance, APGA and the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, are engaged in war of words over the outcome of the March 18th Governorship election in Enugu State.
The candidate of the PDP, Barr Peter Mbah was declared the winner of the March 18th governorship election by the Independent National Electoral Commission on Wednesday.
Mbah scored 160,985 votes to defeat his closest challenger, Chijioke Edeoga of the Labour Party who scored 157,552 votes while APGA came a distant 3rd with 17,983 votes and APC occupied the 4th position with 14575 votes.
However, in an elaborate press conference on Friday, Frank Nweke alleged that the process was marred by “multitude of infringements on our democratic process,” and can beat be described as “an assault on our desires and our hope for our great state.”
Nweke who insisted that the process was characterised by “threats and intimidation,” encouraged his supporters to keep hope alive and not be discouraged “by the unfortunate challenges that have beset our current democratic experience.”
Nweke said he won’t be keeping to the promise made during his campaign to congratulate the winner of the election because the “election was far from fair and certainly, not transparent,” noting that it was characterised by non democratic process.
“The violence, thuggery, intimidation, use of divisive sentiments, and the weaponization of poverty against our people, which the Peoples Democratic Party deployed in the course of the campaign and the elections reflect the desperation of the Party to hold on to power against the will of the people. It was never about service or the good of ndi Enugu; and the impunity with which these wicked acts were carried out is sickening.
“Very early in the morning of Saturday, March 18, town criers travelled through several communities in Enugu state ordering anyone who would not vote in favour of the People’s Democratic Party to stay home.
“The House of Assembly candidate of the All Progressives Grand Alliance for Udenu Constituency was attacked and almost killed on the morning of the election, while five polling units within his jurisdiction were cordoned off by police and military officers.
“At various polling units across the State, PDP thugs, party members, hired criminals and some compromised members of the police and military threatened voters at polling units and chased those who could not be bought over or intimidated into voting for the PDP. In Nsukka, voters recorded and reported gunshots at polling units allegedly instigated by the Labour Party.
“Only a few polling unit agents uploaded their results directly on IREV as provided by INEC, and fake result sheets were used to rewrite and manipulate the results of vote counts at the polling units before the falsified results of the elections were uploaded to the IREV. Some of these result sheets are also completely blurred on the portal.
“The collation centres at the local government headquarters were completely hijacked by thugs and compromised security operatives, and party agents other than the agents of the PDP were not allowed access to any stage of the collation process until Sunday morning. At 7:20 pm on election day, shots were fired sporadically at the Nkanu West collation centre in Agbani, while the military stood aside and watched. Similar breaches of the law and subversion of the electoral process occurred across many locations in the State.
“The elections of March 18, 2023 in Enugu State were a complete sham. They were not fair. They were not free. And they were not credible.
“The entire process, down to the declaration of its winner is a complete farce and will lack legitimacy for as long as it stands.”
On his next line of action, Nweke said he would explore every legal means to challenge the outcome of the election.
“I have no problem losing an election to the will of the people. But when this will has been subverted, we have no choice but to review the entire process and the outcome.
“We will explore and exhaust every action required to ensure the legitimacy of the next government in Enugu State. You cannot hold accountable something that was acquired by illegitimate means.”
Similarly, the candidate of the Labour Party, Chijioke Edeoga, condemned the outcome of the election and accused INEC of bending its own rule in declaring Mbah as the Governor-elect in Enugu State.
Edeoga alleged that the votes of Nkanu East local government area shouldn’t have been allowed to stand.
In a swift response to the accusations of APGA and LP candidates, the PDP dismissed the allegations raised by Nweke and Edeoga, adding that the mandate freely given to it by the people will stand.
The ruling party said the effort of APGA and the LP to depreciate the outcome of the election will fail, adding that the people of Enugu State rose above clan, religious denomination, and party divides to elect the PDP candidate, Dr. Peter Mbah, as the best-prepared for the job.
The Campaign Council said if any party should complain bitterly, it was indeed the PDP, which was manifestly rigged out in several local government areas where the election was militarised against their supporters, despite being the ruling party.
The PDP said it was instructive that neither Nweke nor Edeoga uttered a word of condemnation when LP’s senator-elect for Enugu North senatorial district, Chief Okey Ezea, openly declared the governorship election a “do-or-die” affair in a viral video and also urged the youths to prepare themselves for the planned onslaught against the PDP.
The party spoke in Enugu through the Director of Communications/Spokesperson of the Campaign Council, Nana Ogbodo, on Friday.
Ogbodo said: “Recall that when Mr. Frank Nweke Jr. and Hon. Chijioke Edeoga levelled allegations of planned compromise of the governorship election against the PDP, INEC, and other vital institutions of democracy ahead of the March 18 polls, we were quick to point out that they were not only making excuses for their expected failure at the polls, but also indirectly letting Ndi Enugu into the mayhem they planned to unleash on Enugu people, having failed to condemn the statement by the LP party chieftain and senator-elect, Chief Okey Ezea designating the March 18 governorship election as a ‘do-or-die” affair.
“We also told you that Nweke, who has been a part and parcel of the PDP since 1999 and until last year, serving as Chief of Staff to former governor Chimaroke Nnamani and Minister in three ministries only left to APGA on the erroneous permutation that PDP’s governorship ticket would go outside Nkanu land so he could harvest from the expected protest votes of the people.
“We can authoritatively inform you that Nweke will also be on his way out of APGA after he must lost again at the Election Petition Tribunal, as he equivocated during today’s press conference when he was asked if he would stay and build APGA into a viable political party in the state.
“He did not disappoint when he characteristically took to the media to deprecate the outcome of the governorship polls, which he was bound to lose in the first place. It is noteworthy that he only garnered 1,609 votes in his native Nkanu West LGA to lose scandalously to PDP, which polled 8,382 votes.
“It is equally instructive that after all the media vituperations, Nweke only managed to poll a meagrely 17,983 votes across the state as against 160,895 votes polled by PDP’s Dr. Ndubuisi Mbah.
“Therefore, we wonder how a man, who scored only 1,609 votes in his LGA, a man rejected by his own people, and also running on a party without structures in the state intended to win a gubernatorial election against the PDP that is not only on ground, but equally parading by far the best candidate with proven capacity, competency, character, track records as well as the most detailed, viable, and ambitious manifesto.
“Meanwhile, we challenge Nweke to swear that the 2023 governorship election was not far better than the massively rigged 2007 election, which he stoutly defended and engaged in war of words with the leader of the US election observer’s mission, Madeleine Albright and former President of the Senate, Senator Ken Nnamani. He not only accused Nnamani of plotting an Interim National Government, but also claimed that those complaining about the election were coup plotters. Nigerians would recall that even the main beneficiary of the 2007 heist that Nweke vehemently defended, former President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua, was later to openly admit to the world that the polls were flawed.
On Edeoga, the PDP Campaign Council stated: “Edeoga knows very well that his false claims of over-voting in Nkanu East LGA is a deliberate fabrication that has been put to rest by INEC. He only regurgitates the fallacy to mislead unsuspecting Nigerians the usual Enugu LP’s penchant for propaganda.
“We are aware and have it on record, all the atrocious rigging and militarisation of the election against our supporters in most parts of Enugu North Senatorial Zone and Isi-Uzo LGA. We have ample evidences on how the PDP was manifestly rigged out in Nsukka LGA, Udenu, Igboeze North, Igbo-Eze South, Igbo-Etiti, Isi Uzo, etc. It will also be good if Edeoga tells the world how the about 17,000 votes it recorded in Nsukka LGA suddenly became over 30,000 votes with a phantom over 45,000 voter turnout.
“We commend and align with our governorship candidate, Dr. Peter Mbah’s in the olive branch that he extended to the opposition candidates. We applaud his statesmanship. However, we will meet them at the tribunal if they so choose. It is actually the right place to undress their hypocrisy, violent tendencies, and misuse of security agencies and vital intuitions of democracy for the world to see”.
The PDP, however, enjoined them to accept the olive and be part of the new Enugu Sate that Mbah was rearing to build.
“These are members of the PDP that only wanted to go to the Lion Building in other vehicles. East, West, North and South, there is no place like home and we are ever ready to welcome them back whenever they return. Even the prodigal son, who squandered his father’s wealth and abused his privileges was not rejected by his father”, the PDP stated.
