The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Enugu State has dismissed the statements by the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) governorship candidate, Mr. Frank Nweke, and his Labour Party (LP) counterpart, Hon. Chijioke Edeoga, deprecating the outcome of the 2023 governorship election in the state. The party said 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 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 for 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.”
The PDP, however, enjoined them to be part of the new Enugu Sate that the governor-elect, Peter Mbah was rearing to build.