TheCable

Frank Nweke Jr, governorship candidate of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) in Enugu, has accused the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) of planning to disrupt the March 11 election in the state.

Speaking at a press briefing on Friday, Nweke alleged that the PDP has made plans to influence officials of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to bypass the bimodal voter accreditation system (BVAS) machines in its favour.

Nweke also alleged that the state chapter of PDP held a series of meetings at various locations to perfect their plans of disrupting the electoral process.

“They plan to sabotage the elections in Enugu and also to specifically ensure that the original result sheets are neither brought to the polling units nor the ward and local government collation centres,” Nweke said.

“This is so since BVAS malfunctioned in the last election; they now reasoned that they would calmly write new results.”

The APGA guber candidate also alleged that the PDP has informed security personnel to stay away so that they can cause mayhem at polling units and collation centres.

“They have also produced security systems uniforms for thugs to disguise as escorts to INEC personnel from the point of dispatch to a pre-arranged location where rigging will be carried out using the non-collected PVCs of voters across the 17 LGAs,” he said.

“We will see that your vote is protected. We will not take lightly any plans to subvert or abuse the democratic process.”

When contacted, Ikeje Asogwa, director-general of the PDP campaign council in Enugu, debunked the allegation, describing it as “the crying of a drowning man”.

Asogwa said the PDP has no capacity to manipulate the election results.

“Nweke feels that he is about to lose. We don’t have the capacity to manipulate BVAS,” Asogwa said.

“Nweke should stop throwing unsubstantiated allegations on PDP.”