A civil rights advocacy group, the Forum for Positive Change (FPC), has slammed Senator Chris Ngige, the All Progressives Congress (APC) gubernatorial candidate for the November 16 election in Anambra State, for raising unfounded fears about a planned rigging by the opposition and warned him to desist from unjustly heating up the political space.

In a recent chat with journalists in Lagos, FPC President, Barrister Okechukwu Chinweze, dismissed Senator Ngige’s widely reported comment that Governor Peter Obi’s recent donation of buses to schools in Anambra State was part of a plan to rig the forthcoming election as the cries of a drowning politician.

According to Chinweze, a Lagos-based lawyer who hails from Ogbunike in Anambra State, Senator Ngige’s comments were made without rigorous thinking. “Senator Ngige is famous for crying wolf where there is none. How could anyone connect the donation of school buses to children who have not even attained the voting age to a plan to rig election? Senator Ngige should have looked for a stronger excuse to raise his now familiar alarm. Somebody should please tell him to shut up if she has nothing better to say,” Barrister Chinweze advised.

The civil rights activist expressed grave concern that some candidates for the coming elections have resorted to unorthodox and unacceptable tactics to ruin the chances of their opponents. He, however, warned that if the indigenes of the state do not show enough vigilance, Anambra would lose the peace it has enjoyed in the last almost eight years under Governor Obi.

Hear him: “The Forum for Positive Change is worried that some of the candidates for the coming election have resorted to stone-age strategies to run down their opponents. We have seen some forged documents floating around, alleging the signing of non-existent pacts. We have also heard false allegations of double registration which INEC and other authorities have since quashed. All these are primitive tactics that do not belong to modern politics. We warn the candidates engaging in these unwholesome acts to desist from them immediately and run a campaign based solely on issues.”

He described as “regrettable” the tendency by the handlers of Senator Ngige’s political machinery to seek for approval through “sensational” routes and warned that his group would resist any effort to discredit the electoral process by do-or-die politicians who may lose out in the coming election in the state.

“We are closely monitoring all the candidates. We are listening to their statements and campaign rhetoric. We know that some of Nigerian politicians have always given away their negative plans in unguarded comments made during campaigns. We shall hold them accountable for whatever anti-people conduct they exhibit after the election,” Barrister Chinweze further warned.

He further revealed that FPC had started mobilising its members ahead of the governorship election to ensure an effective monitoring of the voting process.

According to him, “Those who are making unguarded comments are simply telling us where to look. We shall do our job diligently. We have resolved that Anambra State shall not return to the days when the abduction of a sitting governor and the burning of government house was the order of the day.”

•Photo shows Senator Ngige.

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