The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Enugu State, has described claims by the All Progressives Congress (APC’s) gubernatorial candidate in the state, Okey Ezea that the PDP was conniving with the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to hoard permanent voters cards (PVCs) as an egregious hoax and “product of someone’s very putrid imagination”.
A statement signed by the Director of PDP Campaign Organization in the State, Chukwudi Achife said the claim was not only totally unfounded but was a mischievous ploy by Ezea to provide excuses in advance for “his impending third time defeat by the PDP in gubernatorial elections in the state”
Achife noted that contrary to Ezea’s claims, the PDP in the state and nationwide, had been at the forefront of the campaign to compel INEC to ensure that all voters were issued with their PVCs and wondered how the party could now collude with the same INEC to hoard the cards.
The Enugu PDP Campaign spokesman said Ezea’s “cock and bull story”
was a well worn tactic to deceive his backers in case of another failure to secure his ambition adding that he had employed the same approach in the two previous occasions he contested the gubernatorial elections in the state and lost to the PDP.
Achife said, “We would have been surprised if Okey Ezea came to this election and changed his old habits of making wild and mischievous claims against the PDP. As we can see, he has not, and our reading of it is that, just like in previous occasions, he has sensed that he will lose this election, he has observed the overwhelming popularity that the PDP and its candidates especially the gubernatorial candidate, Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi enjoy among the people of Enugu State. He has seen the mammoth crowds that turned out at the rallies that we have so far conducted and is already preparing excuses for his impending failure at the polls. We observe also that his campaign has not even taken off, perhaps because he knows the people are not with him”
Going further, Achife said, “Ezea ‘s mickey mouse tales of a female INEC staff carrying PVCs around is as laughable as it it is frivolous because he has offered no verifiable evidence that such a women exists nor that any such thing as he claims ever happened. All we have is salacious gossip and for all we know, the phone numbers he supplied and claimed to belong to the so called staff, could jolly well belong to his domestic servants or members of his party”.
While expressing confidence that it would be vindicated by any investigations into the matter, the PDP urged voters in the state to disregard Ezea’s antics but rather focus their energies in ensuring that they collected their PVCs from INEC.
The PDP advised Ezea and the APC to concentrate their energies on convincing the people “rather than employing desperate antics to deceive them and hide APC’s lack of grounding in the state”.
The party further urged INEC to intensify its efforts to ensure that all registered voters in the state received theirPVCs before the commencement of the election.
