…Mbah’s private sector’s success dint of hard-work, revolutionary ideas – PDP

The embattled governorship flagbearer of the Labour Party, LP, in Enugu State, Mr. Chijioke Edeoga (sacked recently by a federal high court), his counterpart in the All Progressives Congress, APC, Engr. Uchenna Nnaji, and their social media minions have been accused of heating up the polity by deliberately sponsoring and peddling malicious falsehood against the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, and its governorship candidate, Dr. Peter Mbah.

In a press statement signed by the Director of Communications and Spokesperson, Enugu State PDP Campaign Organisation, Barr. Nana Ogbodo, Edeoga and Nnaji were implicitly fingered as the arrowheads of those behind unprovoked and coordinated attacks on the person of Dr. Mbah, a successful businessman and global player in the downstream sub-sector of the Nigeria oil and gas sector.

Recall that before and after primary elections in the state, Edeoga had been rolling out barrages of fake news against other contenders ahead of the 2023 general elections.

Dr. Mbah, tipped to win the general election by his wide acceptance and massive endorsements by different professional bodies, support groups, communities, churches, Interfaith bodies, ethnic groups residing in the state, has come under attacks by the APC and LP governorship candidates with unsubstantiated stories often dismissed by the electorate as a hoax and futile attempts to mislead the public.

Sources close to Uchenna Nnaji and Edeoga, who pleaded anonymity, had said their principals had been having nocturnal meetings on how to cook up fake news and tell false stories against Dr. Mbah and his ingenuity in the private sector as a way of tarnishing his hard-earned integrity, using their cronies and social media miscreants for the hatchet job.

While disclosing the reasons behind their motive, one of Edeoga’s supporters said his boss believed Mbah would not want to engage on social media war or retaliation as he had always been preaching politics of decency and politics without bitterness, adding that Edeoga said he alongside Nnaji of the APC and others were not comfortable over the growing popularity the PDP gubernatorial flagbearer continues to garner in his ongoing town-hall meetings across the state.

It would be recalled that President Muhammadu Buhari recently commissioned the legendary Pinnacle Oil and Gas intake, storage, offtake facility sitting atop the Atlantic Ocean and designated as a national strategic asset. The Pinnacle Oil and Gas Ltd, a child-brain of Mbah’s ingenuity and disruptive innovation, has employed thousands of Nigerians across the nation, including over 3000 Enugu state citizens.

The project which was financed through the partnerships with the Fidelity Bank, First Bank, Globus Bank and Coronation Bank has been declared as a revolutionary project targeted at ending exploitation of Nigerians and making oil supplies abundantly available in the country. Since the commission of the project, Nigerians have been praising Mbah, with Enugu people pleading with him to come back to Enugu and replicate the same revolutionary ingenuity to create more jobs for the youths, attract investments and make the state even safer for economic prosperity.

However, in the press statement, Barr. Ogbodo has vowed that the PDP would no longer fold its arms watching others maligning the party and its candidates as legal redress may be resorted to in order to restore decency and continue to make the state under Governor Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi the most peaceful state in the country.

Barr. Ogbodo, who was livid about the unprovoked attacks on innocent citizens, wondered why those that failed in private businesses and have no meaningful life outside politics should judge others from their own failure.

According to him, Mbah believes in a decent and saner society and would not engage the opposition in name-calling and abusive language but would keep on engaging the people on how to bring development down to their door steps.

The statement reads in full:

“DELIBERATE MALIGNING OF PDP GUBERNATORIAL CANDIDATE BY OPPOSITION FIGURES

“One of the phenomenal experiences of the 21st Century is the impact of social media on almost every aspect of our national life. But it is unfortunate that some misguided members of the society have continually hidden under the anonymity of this virtual world to peddle sheer falsehood and utter malicious content.

“Enugu State is not immune to this malaise. In the last few months especially since the beginning of campaigns for the forthcoming elections, those who ought to have known better, have sought to revile the prevailing civility in the state and drag the hard-earned reputation of Enugu’s illustrious sons to the mud of public obloquy. Lately, the state has been inundated with clearly malicious jingles and sundry content conceived with the devious intent to malign the reputation of our governorship candidate, Dr. Peter Ndubuisi Mbah. Despite the disingenuous attempt to mask the identity of the purveyors, it is not difficult to deduce the source of these slanderous messages.

“We are not in the least surprised by such discovery, as the messages are in sync with the characters of the linchpins whose political careers are typified by mudslinging. Whereas most of these pretenders have no record of success in any previous endeavor, they are wont to rate any other person’s successes from the warped prism of their serial failings, after all, it is often typical of scoundrels to assume that their enemies are the enemies of God! Rather than devote efforts to enunciate a functional blueprint, or nurture their tarnished reputations, these besmirched opposition elements have chosen, quite ironically, to contrive a campaign of calumny against someone who, by his sheer dint of hard work and revolutionary ideas, has been able, through the Pinnacle Oil success story, to give Enugu State a salient definition in the national map of entrepreneurship, thus underscoring that we are also blessed with men of distinct abilities. Such dirty ploy is reflective of the Socratic saying that slander becomes the tool of the loser when the debate is lost! Yet, the PDP Campaign Organization would like to emphasize that slander is never permissible in any society governed by the rule of law.

“Indeed, it is gratifying to note that the Enugu State governor, Rt. Hon. Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi, has enthroned an enabling environment characterized by restraint even in the face of brazen provocation. Such unrestrained freedom, we all know, is not guaranteed in some states around Enugu. These purveyors of falsehood know this too well. Fortunately, such lies can only titillate a few. The larger section of the electorate would rather be treated to engaging debates and ennobling campaigns. This is what our candidate has been carrying out through his numerous town hall meetings across the state.

“We hereby note that whereas the Nigerian constitution guarantees an array of freedoms, including rights of expression, it does not translate to a right to deliberately impugn people’s reputation. We therefore hereby call on the law enforcement agencies to dig deep and bring to law all those who have by these incendiary messages gone beyond the threshold of law and decency. It is also pertinent to restate that while we may have chosen to go high as they consciously plunge lower to depths of depravity, we are not averse to seeking legal redress when the line of decency is breached as presently obtains.”

Nana Ogbodo Esq.
Director of Communications/Spokesman
Enugu State PDP Campaign Organization

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