Frank Nweke, a former minister running for governorship election
By Tony Adibe
The Campaign Council of the Enugu State chapter of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has dismissed allegations of planned rigging of the March 11 governorship and State House of Assembly elections in the state levelled against it by the governorship candidate of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA), Mr. Frank Nweke Jr., as a disingenuous effort at pre-emptive excuses for his expected abysmal outing in the election.
The Enugu State PDP said Nweke’s impact on the March 11 polls “ends with making preposterous conjectures,” stressing that the “race is clearly above his ken as he has all the while been boxing above his weight.”
Nweke, the party said, had only succeeded in making the ballot papers longer than necessary, predicting that the former Minister of information would even “come back to the umbrella” after his humbling defeat on March 11. The Campaign Council stated this in a press release issued by its Director of Communications/Spokesperson, Nana Ogbodo, on Friday.
The statement read in part: “We would ordinarily not dignify Nweke with a response because his impact on the forthcoming general elections begins and ends with congesting and making the ballot papers longer than necessary. “He is, therefore, only laying the formwork of excuses for his expected abysmal outing in the governorship poll.
“Nweke went into APGA ostensibly on the wrong permutation that PDP’s governorship ticket would go outside Nkanu land so he could harvest from the expected anger of the people. Unfortunately for him, events mocked at his foresight as that was not to be.
“We, therefore, advise Nweke to climb down from this high horse and first present himself for a popularity test in his hometown, Ozalla, before pursuing an illusionary governorship ambition”. The Campaign Council also expressed shock that the former Minister was not yet in tune with the changes in the electoral laws that had strengthened the electoral system.
“Perhaps, as a former Minister of Information, who defended perceived electoral deficits in the 2007 election and engaged in hot exchanges with the then Senate President, Ken Nnamani and the international communities on the conduct of the election in Enugu or as former Chief of Staff, who may have meddled with the electoral processes as he alluded in his press release, Nweke is still unaware that the Electoral Act 2022 has effectively put a stop to whatever ignoble roles he might have been playing in the past”.
“We also reckon that Nweke, who has been a senior stakeholder and a major beneficiary of successive PDP governments until March 2022 when he embarked on his delusional governorship voyage on the platform of APGA will ultimately return to the umbrella after his crushing defeat on March 11”, the statement added.
