Enugu State chapter of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Campaign Council has urged security agencies to look into allegations that the Labour Party (LP) in the state had amassed arms, ammunition, and “angels” of death in several boundary communities in three neighbouring states from where it intends to deploy in the early hours of tomorrow.
In a statement signed by the director-general of the PDP Campaign Council, Mr. Nana Ogbodo, the party said it also had it “on good authority” that LP had perfected plans to intimidate and compel voters in Enugu North Senatorial District to cast their ballots for it, saying that, ‘”to the desperate opposition, the March 18 election has become a case of your vote or your life.”
The PDP said it was unfortunate that while it chose “to walk on an edifying path,” its opponents had chosen to “swim in the mud,” and “preferring to indulge in a campaign of calumny, unconscionable fabrications and character smear”, which it said, was “reminiscent of the Socratic quip: ‘When the debate is lost, slander becomes the tool of the loser.’”
The party’s campaign council expressed disappointment over what it called “the glee with which the opposition have continued to beat the drums of war, cause apprehension among voters and level reckless and unfounded allegations against the PDP, Enugu State government, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), the security agencies, and every decent institution of democracy.”
The statement further reads: “Indeed we see this disingenuous tendency to skirt around the issues that matter to the Enugu electorate in the Labour Party’s candidate, Chijioke Edeoga’s perennial scaremongering.
“Rather than outline a roadmap that offers a sense of his vision for the state, Edeoga seizes every opportunity to paint a siege atmosphere, sow hate with his divisive rhetoric, and make infantile claims against our party, alleging a phantom plan to perpetrate violence on election day. Ironically, he has ignored the fact that it was Okey Ezea, a prominent member of his party, who stated openly that this election is a ‘do-or-die’ affair,” Ogbodo said.
The party said it was reiterating its call for security agencies to take necessary actions to curb whatever untoward plans “the Labour Party war drummers “ might have contrived to visit mayhem on the electorate.
“We know their collaborators, including two former ministers from the state, who are equally the godfathers of the Labour Party candidate. This is an open secret. They have deployed their contacts and vast resources to procure instruments of war for an otherwise civic function as simple as an election,” the party said.
