The People's Democratic Party PDP, in Ebonyi state has raised the alarm over what it described as underground plot by Ebonyi State Government and the ruling All Progressives Congress APC to frame up criminal allegation, harass and intimidate members, noting that the plot was to further suppress the growing popularity of the PDP in the State.
Briefing journalist in Abakaliki, the publicity Secretary of PDP in the State, Prince Darlington Peter Onwe further alleged that the state government and the APC has perfected plans to fabricate false allegation against PDP members bothering on illegal procurement of Permanent Voters card by PDP members which is a grand ploy to incarcerate them, drawing the attention of security agencies to the issue.
His statement reads in part;
"The Ebonyi State Chapter of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has received credible intelligence of a fresh and vilifying scheme by the administration of Governor Francis Nwifuru and the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) to further suppress the PDP in the State.
"According to information reported to our Party, the next phase of this scheme involves fabricating allegations that PDP members are engaged in the illegal procurement of Permanent Voter Cards (PVCs), as a pretext to intimidate, harass, arrest, and incarcerate our loyal members and officials.
"This latest manoeuvre comes barely months after the Governor publicly vowed to "consume" the PDP and opposition parties in Ebonyi State ahead of the 2027 general election—a statement our Party had already petitioned relevant institutions over and condemned as reckless and unbecoming of a serving Chief Executive sworn to protect, and not persecute, the citizens of the State, including members of opposition parties. It is therefore our considered position that this new plot is a desperate response to the Governor's declining popularity and the PDP's growing influence across the State, rather than any genuine electoral infraction on the part of our members.
"Our Party is a law-abiding political organisation, and at no time has it contemplated, authorised, or condoned any conduct capable of violating the Electoral Act 2026, the guidelines of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), or any other extant law of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. We therefore reject, in its entirety, any attempt to associate our members with unlawful dealings in PVCs, and we hold that this narrative is being manufactured solely to justify a pre-planned campaign of arrests and intimidation against our party faithful.
"Accordingly, we wish to place on record that the actions being contemplated by the Ebonyi State Government and the ruling APC, if allowed to proceed, would constitute a grave violation of fundamental constitutional rights and international legal conventions. Specifically, this planned repression directly assaults the rights to personal liberty, freedom of expression, peaceful assembly, association, and free movement guaranteed under Sections 35, 39, 40, and 41 of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria (as amended), alongside Section 222 and related provisions of the Constitution and the Electoral Act 2026 governing lawful political activities and due process. Furthermore, it breaches Nigeria’s binding international obligations under the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights (Articles 6, 9, 10, and 13), the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (Articles 9, 19, 21, 22, and 25), the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (Articles 9, 19, and 20), the United Nations Declaration on Human Rights Defenders (1998), and ECOWAS Protocol A/SP1/12/01 on Democracy and Good Governance, which explicitly mandates Member States to safeguard political pluralism and protect opposition parties from state-sponsored persecution.
"Consequently, any attempt to weaponise state security architecture to entrap, arrest, or detain PDP members on manufactured allegations would amount to an assault on these instruments and on the democratic character of the Nigerian State.
We hereby formally notify and call upon the following institutions and stakeholders to take urgent note of this looming threat to democracy and the rule of law in Ebonyi State, and to act proactively to forestall it:
"The National Security Adviser to the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria;
The Director-General of the Department of State Services (DSS);
The National Intelligence Agency and other relevant intelligence bodies;
The Inspector-General of Police;
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC);
The National Human Rights Commission;
Members of the Diplomatic Corps accredited to Nigeria;
National, regional, and international human rights and pro-democracy organisations; and
Ebonyians, the Nigerian public, and the media.
"We urge these bodies to rescue democracy and press freedom in Ebonyi State, as this pattern of impunity is not new.
On a previous occasion, political thugs were mobilised and deployed to breach a PDP event and unleash mayhem on the journalists and pressmen covering it at Ikwuator, Idembia, in Ezza South Local Government Area, during a rally organised to receive a defector, a former APC member, into the PDP. About ten journalists of the Correspondents' Chapel of the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ), travelling in a clearly branded vehicle to cover the event, were reportedly set upon by a mob of suspected political thugs, numbering more than fifty and allegedly led by a lawyer, who smashed the vehicle with stones and other objects and searched for fuel to set it ablaze before the driver escaped. At least ten PDP supporters were also injured in the same assault and had to receive hospital treatment.
"The Ebonyi State chapter of the NUJ subsequently condemned the attack as barbaric and demanded that security agencies identify and prosecute those responsible, describing the safety of journalists as critical to the survival of democracy.
"In light of the foregoing, the PDP Ebonyi State hereby raises its internal security alert to RED. We are placing all our members, structures, and stakeholders on high alert, and we will not hesitate to mobilise all lawful, constitutional, and diplomatic channels available to us, should this plot be carried out against any of our members.
"We reiterate our commitment to peaceful, lawful, and constitutional politics, and we call on Governor Nwifuru and the leadership of the APC in Ebonyi State to lean towards issue-based governance and genuine democratic engagement, rather than persecution of perceived political opponents".
In a swift response, the chairman of the All Progressives Congress APC in Ebonyi State, Chief Stanley Okoro Emegha said, "I can tell you that this is a petition for somebody the PDP sent to be buying voters’ cards from people and he was arrested. Those people are still in police custody here now in Abakaliki.
"Why should someone be going from house to house buying voters’ cards from aged women that don’t know? Is that how to win election?
"There is no justifiable reason for you to give me N5,000 and be holding my PVC. Let me have my PVC so that I will have access to vote for whosoever I want.
"People will just come down and then be creating confusion because they want to get money from certain big men, certain rich men.
"They will tell him how they are killing somebody there. He will start asking them to send money. Somebody will go and gather his chairs, plastic chairs... destroy fifteen and tell him they were destroyed. The essence is for him to send money for thirty seats.
"You are very rich. You have private jet, you have estates in Lagos. What business have you established here in your state? Create employment for your people.
"You can't go to them believing you will use violence. You use propaganda. You will go to court and collect it because you can pack the money and give them.
"Justice is in the mind of the judge. You can only try, but you cannot escape the justice of heaven, no matter what you do.
"Invest your money wisely and not in a violent form because tomorrow we will still come down as Ebonyi people. That is the small, simple truth", he concluded.
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