The Cross River State
chapter of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has dismissed claims of a
trending Web video of ballot papers being thumb printed at a private residence
in the just concluded Presidential and National Assembly elections and which
has been attributed to it.
The PDP, while describing the viral video as a poor hatchet
job intended to cast a slur on the integrity of the February 16 elections in
the state, said it was the handiwork of the APC elements who have been
electorally decimated and are yet to recover from the pulverization.
Distancing the State government from the claims portrayed in the
viral video, Mr. Linus Obogo, the Deputy Chief Press Secretary to Cross River
State governor, Senator Ben Ayade, said: “The PDP is already an entrenched
institution spanning over 20 years in the state. Everyone knows that Cross
River has always and will always be a PDP state. So, in the light of this, we
have no reason to feel threatened by any force, whether real or imagined,
necessitating the recruitment or hiring of anyone to mass thumb print ballot papers
to secure a victory.”
Obogo who described Cross River APC as an atomistic
conglomeration perpetually at war with itself, wondered how a party that has
since its presence in the state been mired in an attritive and internecine
strife could expect to defeat the PDP in an election, given its well documented
polarity and schism.
According to Obogo, “what APC has done in the viral video is
all about struggling to save its face from the ugly trouncing and
humiliation at the February 16 elections by gathering some miscreants with a
stash of cash in a private residence of one of their defeated members with an
intent to not only devalue the worth of its victory but also to impugn the
credibility of the elections.”
Faulting the ingenuity of the makers of the video, Obogo
said: “The content of the video clearly exposed their scheme as a dubious
parody by some disoriented desperados embarking on what I will describe as pull
him down syndrome. You could see clearly that the makers of the video lacked
imagination and creativity. They claimed to have been promised twenty million
naira, with more than a quarter of the amount paid upfront, how come they were
thumb printing with a stash of cash in display all over the place? If they were
doing a clinical job, shouldn’t they have concealed the cash rather than
display or have them filmed in the manner depicted in the video? From their
conversation, even a moron could tell obviously that there was no coherence and
logicality in their febrile bid to pooh-pooh our party’s well earned victory.
You could see that they were just mentioning names to a justification for their
mission. But it turned out so inchoate and terribly cobbled together. There is
no doubt that it was clearly a poor imitation intended to frame up someone.
“The video is a concoction of some depraved and desperate
minds, out to either tarnish the image of our party or that of the government
or at best put a question mark on the credibility and transparency of the
February 16 elections.
“I want state unambiguously and without any equivocation
that neither our government nor our party has anything to do with the claims
and content of the Web video and we condemn it in the strongest terms possible.
How could a party which has never been on ground in the state expect to go into
an electoral contest and win against a well-established and united front like
the PDP? We worked so hard with an excellent strategy of door-to-door
mobilization to earn us a victory. The governor’s food on the table initiative
was the masterstroke that secured our victory. We envisaged no threat
whatsoever.”
Warning of a similar decimation and unmitigated pummelling on
March 9, the number two spokesman of Ayade said: “The trashing of February
16 was a clear signal of yet another crushing defeat that will be unleashed on
the APC in the March 9 governorship and House of Assembly elections. As party
and government, we are too politically sophisticated and culturally refined to
engage in such an unethical and base conduct as depicted in the video. The only
place to locate that is in a canine dog-eat-dog party which the state APC
typifies, where foul is fair and all is fair in war.”
Insisting on exposing those behind the despicable video,
Obogo said: “While I urge them to go about licking the wounds of their
electoral defeat with all the fortitude they can muster, let me make it known
to them that the matter has been reported to the police and it will be
investigated, with the faces already identified in the video exposed and
prosecuted. At the fullness of time, those behind the farcical video will be
unmasked. This, we can assure Cross Riverians.”