The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Campaign Council in Enugu State has responded to the Labour Party (LP) governorship candidate in the state, Hon. Chijioke Edeoga, saying he has no mandate to reclaim in the March 18 Enugu governorship election.
The Campaign Council stated that Edeoga should be held accountable for the Labour Party’s “massive electoral fraud and ruthless militarisation of the March 18 governorship election.”
The PDP was reacting to a statement made by Edeoga at a victory party for House of Assembly member-elect for Udenu State Constituency, Obinna Ijere, on Wednesday in Obollo-Afor.
The LP gubernatorial flagbearer had said he would do everything humanly possible to reclaim his mandate, adding, “No retreat, no surrender. No negotiation. Forward ever, backward never until victory is assured.”
But reacting, the Director of Communications/Spokesperson of the Enugu State PDP Campaign Council, Barr Nana Ogbodo said: “Edeoga and his LP should wake up to the reality that the Enugu 2023 governorship election had been won and lost. They should get used to the fact that we now have a governor-elect in the person of Dr. Peter Mbah in whom the people of the state vested their popular mandate on March 18 and nothing can change it”.
Continuing, the PDP claimed that the Labour Party should be held responsible for inciting and perpetrating electoral violence in parts of Enugu State during the governorship election.
“Nigerians heard the senator-elect and LP chieftain, Okey Ezea, loud and clear when he announced in a viral video that they would make the governirship election a ‘do-or-die affair’.
“Indeed the LP lived up to that declaration when they used men of the armed forces and thugs to carry out reckless shooting, arrest, intimidation, manhandling of PDP supporters, and to perpetrate the worst electoral frauds in the history of Nsukka and Isi-Uzo LGAs in particular and Enugu North senatorial zone in general.
“We join the CSOs and election observers in inviting Edeoga to tell Nigerians how about 17,000 voter turnout in Nsukka LGA on election day suddenly changed to well over 45,000 voters on Sunday just to gift him 30,294 phantom votes,” he alleged.
The PDP asked the Labour Party to explain how they allegedly manufactured the 12,779 ‘miracle’ votes in just the four wards of Owerre/Umuoyo, Ihe, Nkpunano, and Obukpa in Nsukka LGA alone and how Nkpunano and Ihe wards turned in identical scores of 3,410 votes each in favour of the Labour Party.
It further questioned how the LP polled over 17,000 votes in the nine polling units inside the UNN at a time students and most staff were on election break as ordered by the National Universities Commission and on a day many national dailies reported low voter turnout.
The PDP congratulated Dr. Peter Mbah and assured the people that their efforts and the confidence reposed in the governor-elect would not be in vain.
“The sacrifices made by the people in resisting the rigging machines and violent mercenaries of the LP would be adequately compensated by Dr. Peter Mbah’s innovative and transformative leadership,” the party concluded.