Pyanic in Enugu PDP over Court Cases on Violation of Electoral Law

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Party suspends campaign as members secretly negotiate with the opposition_

By Our Reporter

A report reaching Coal City News is that there is now real panic in the camp of the Enugu State chapter of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP. The panic, it was gathered, is connected to the court cases challenging PDP’s alleged violation of the 2022 electoral law.

So worrisome has the matter been that the party, which had been acting as if there was no cause for alarm weeks ago, had to backtrack after finding out that the loads of money they had thrown into the case were not helping to get things in their favour.

The PDP in Enugu shot itself in the foot when it submitted its membership register to INEC on the 6th day of May, 2022, notifying it of its intentions to hold primaries. But instead of waiting, in line with the stipulation of the new electoral law that requires giving the electoral body a minimum of 21 days’ notice, it recklessly went ahead to conduct primaries on 22nd, 23rd, and 24th May 2022. From 6th May to 22nd May is just 16 days. From 6th May to 23rd May is 17 days, and from 6th May to 24th May, 18 days. So, in effect, none of the days the local government, house of assembly, senatorial and governorship primaries held was up to the 21 days as is required by the Electoral Act, 2022.

When the ADC and its candidate in Enugu first took up the matter by suing the PDP, the party’s leaders as usual quickly deployed their lethal machinery while acting like nothing was wrong. Chidi Aroh, another serving commissioner and Ugwuanyi’s man friday and fixer, were said to be chasing after the ADC party officials and their lawyers with bags of money, asking them to name their price, as they always believed everyone was buyable. While they succeeded in having the national chairman of the ADC to come down to Enugu to withdraw the party from the suits, after tens of millions as usual allegedly exchanged hands, the Enugu ADC candidate refused to be persuaded or bribed. And the court not only continued the matter with him, the Labour Party in Enugu also successfully applied to be joined.

When the matter came up on 12th December, 2022, in Enugu, Coal City News was in court and witnessed how distressed Dr. Festus Uzor, the former chief of staff and PDP candidate for House of Representatives, was. He sweated profusely and fidgeted endlessly. His reactions betrayed the worries in him and, by extension, among the party’s candidates and chieftains, who were all aware of the likely fate that awaited them in mass disqualification, as had happened in Zamfara and Rivers states.

To make matters worse, the APC in Enugu had instituted at least two new cases against the PDP, all bordering on the same issue and more. The APC has sought the judicial interpretation of the relevant parts of the constitution, vide the electoral law, with a view to determining the compliance or otherwise of the PDP in the state with regards to the dates it notified INEC of its intention to conduct primaries and when that was done. It had done so with certified true copies of all relevant documents like the letters the PDP had written to the INEC and the INEC’s own
letters in acknowledgement, all bearing dates of submission and reception.

Sources close to the PDP in the state told Coal City News the situation was so hopeless that many members of the party were already approaching opposition parties in the state like Labour Party, APGA and the APC, negotiating for possible accommodation, as they didn’t see the prospects of the PDP surviving this. They premised their actions on the belief that no judge would be rascally and reckless enough to succumb to the pressures of the party in a matter that had many precedents and of which facts clearly speak for themselves.

Coal City News also learned the PDP has tactically suspended its campaign, apparently to watch how things panned out. There also seems to be low morale in the party, as the motivation to spend money or go out to engage the people, who in the first place were hostile, was totally lacking in the campaign.