The Peoples Democratic Party in Enugu State on Friday dismissed claims by the governorship candidate of the All Progressives Congress in the state, Okey Ezea, that it was conniving with the Independent National Electoral Commission to hoard permanent voter cards.

A statement signed by the director of PDP campaign organization in the state, Chukwudi Achife, said the claim was not only unfounded, but also a mischievous ploy by Ezea to provide excuses in advance for his “impending third-time defeat” in governorship elections.

Achife noted that contrary to Ezea’s claims, the PDP in Enugu State, and nationwide, had been at the forefront of the campaign to compel INEC to ensure that all voters were issued with their PVCs.

The Enugu PDP campaign spokesman said Ezea’s “cock and bull story” was a well worn tactic to deceive his backers in case of another failure to realise his ambition, noting that the APC candidate had employed the same approach in the two previous occasions he was defeated by the PDP in governorship elections in the state.

Achife said, “We would have been surprised if Okey Ezea came to this election and changed his old habits of making wild and mischievous claims against the PDP.

“As we can see, he has not, and our reading of it is that, just like in previous occasions, he has sensed that he will lose this election, he has  observed the overwhelming popularity that the PDP and its  candidates especially the governorship candidate, Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi enjoy among the people of Enugu State.

“He has seen the mammoth crowds that turned out at the rallies that we have so far conducted and he is therefore already preparing excuses for his impending failure at the polls.

“We observe also that his campaign has not even taken off, perhaps because he knows the people are not with him.”

Continuing, Achife said, “Ezea’s mickey mouse tales of a female INEC staff carrying PVCs around is as laughable as it it is frivolous because he has offered no verifiable evidence that such a woman exists nor that any such thing as he claimed,  ever  happened.

“All we have is salacious gossip and for all we know, the phone numbers he supplied and claimed to belong to the so called staff, could jolly well belong to his domestic servants or members of his party.”

Assuring that the PDP would be vindicated by any investigation into the allegations, Achife urged the people of the state to disregard Ezea’s antics and ensure that they collected their PVCs from INEC.

The PDP campaign organisation advised Ezea and the APC to concentrate their energies on convincing the people “rather than employing desperate antics to deceive them in a bid to hide APC’s lack of grounding in the state”.

The PDP equally urged INEC to ensure that all registered voters in the state received their PVCs before the commencement of the election.