Enugu guber: Falsehoods only mislead, can never win elections – APGA candidate, Nweke tells Edeoga, others
Andrew Ochei
Amidst all manner of social media tantrums and fake news widely spread on social media space since the results of the March 18 governorship election were announced in Enugu State, Frank Nweke, the guber candidate of the All Progressive Grand Alliance, APGA has called on political gladiators in the state to refrain from heating the polity through dishing out all manner of fake news, lies and attacks on the personalities of their colleagues just because they lost the election.
Nweke who made this known when our team of correspondents visited him at his Enugu residence expressed fear and worry over the high rate of attacks on the PDP guber candidate, Peter Mbah, and all manner of ethnic narratives being pushed to cause longtime division among the good people of the State.
He reiterated that as a former Minister of Information, he has never seen where elections were won through social media or cyber-bullying, neither has such medium been used to reclaim one’s mandate after an election, insisting that what leaders who want to maintain peace, progress, and unity in their state do is to go through the court and reclaim their stolen mandate if the court discovers that a mandate was truly stolen.
Nweke urged the Labour Party guber candidate, Chijioke Edeoga to channel his grievances to the court and allow them to do their work since heating the polity with incessant falsehoods will not do good to the people of Enugu but create tensions capable of breaching the trust we have for ourselves and go along way in causing ethnic division just like we are having in the present day Nigerian political system.
“I have been a former Minister of Information and I have never seen where any battle was won through the media. The much the media can do is to mislead, trigger tension and there will be chaos in the land. Therefore, anyone using media to cause tension in the state doesn’t have the interest of the people at heart and such one is not capable of being a leader.
“What is it about fake news being peddled morning and night all over Enugu social media space? Falsehoods are capable of misleading people but will not yield any benefit or make you win in court. We all were on this race together, I have my own grievances about the election but I have never participated in any cyber-bullying of anyone nor attacked their personality just because of political power. Power will come and go but our brotherhood will still be there.
“Chijioke Edeoga and his men are going petty over this issue. They are showing signs of desperation. You have gotten your lawyers and they have headed to the tribunal, why not allow them to do the job of mandate recovery? Why the tension and distortion of the peaceful co-existence of Ndi Enugu? This isn’t how I was taught to do politics and Edeoga has been long in politics even before me and should exhibit character as one who has been in the political field for more than three decades. He should go through the court and recover his mandate if actually it was stolen and allow the people of Enugu State to enjoy their peace,” Nweke concluded.
