The Deputy Speaker of Abia State House of Assembly, Hon. Cosmos Ndukwe, has debunked insinuations by his political opponents that the academic qualifications he used in contesting for the April 2015 election were dubious.
He insisted at a press conference in Umuahia that his political foes were raising issues on the authenticity of his certificates and in the process “my character was assassinated and my integrity injured in the most poignant manner.”
Ndukwe, who represents Bende North state constituency in the state legislature, is defending multiple petitions against his mandate at the tribunal.
He hit out at his opponents, saying that instead of embarking on mischief and blackmail “it is only reasonable one allows the mill of justice to grind to a logical conclusion no matter how slow.”
The candidate of the Progressive Peoples Alliance (PPA), for Bende North State Constituency in the April 2015 election, Chijioke Chukwu is among the petitioners challenging the outcome of the poll which returned Nudkwe as winner.
In an interview published in The Sun edition of September 28, 2015 Chukwu, among other things alleged that “the results he (Ndukwe) submitted to contest the election, from the beginning were all forged.
“My academic records are not only comprehensively genuine but a pure expression of my academic excellence,” he asserted, adding, “a mere subpoena of the issuing authorities would have exposed the minutest irregularities (hence) “it is therefore useless to canvass on pages of newspapers what he could not prove in court”.
He said that Abia State University, where he obtained his first and masters degree and currently pursuing his doctorate programme “is not on the moon” such that his traducers could not go there and verify his academic records.
Ndukwe lamented that his PPA opponent, “who came a distant third” in the poll has been playing politics of ‘lies and blackmail” in his desperation to achieve through sentiments and outlandish allegations on the pages of newspaper what he could not achieve in the ballot box.
He stated that Chukwu had also sworn to “a false affidavit using his liar bailiff friend” claiming that he (Ndukwe) was duly served his petition notice and that the “ghost bailiff” was beaten up when he came to serve the notice. (Source and photo credit:Thisday)
