Last Saturday’s controversial re-run election in Rivers state, which ended on a bloody note has continued to generate reactions from major players, as both the Peoples Democratic Party and the All Progressives Congress engaged in a war of words.
Also, the Inspector General of Police Solomon Arase said the police never took sides with the APC during the exercise, saying his personnel discharged their duties professionally.
The March 19 exercise was conducted to cover all the three senatorial districts, 12 of 13 House of Representatives and 22 of 32 House of Assembly seats, making it all 37.
And just before the cancellation of the results as announced by INEC’s collation officers, the PDP candidates were declared winners of 10 House of Assembly and two House of Representatives’ seats.
But while the PDP alleged the deployment of soldiers during the exercise, the APC insisted that the state governor, Nyesom Wike and his party should be held liable for the accompanying violence.
Addressing journalists in Abuja yesterday, PDP national chairman, Senator Ali Modu Sheriff said the military charged with “the role of maintenance of law and order in flagrant disobedience, went beyond their duty to go and take over the responsibility of INEC in the actual conduct of the re-run election.”
This, the PDP national chairman stated, was an open disrespect for a court order and therefore called on President Muhammadu Buhari to immediately set up a panel of inquiry to investigate the matter with a view to meting out appropriate sanctions to the culprits.
“The PDP is also appalled that the Independent National Electoral Commission, after results had been collated and declared on the ground in many wards and constituencies, yielded to the pressure and instruction of a highly placed politician in Rivers
state to suspend the much-awaited declaration of final results and return of the winners, who are already well known to the electorate.
“We stress that the Electoral Act 2010 (as Amended) and applicable regulations do not support the suspension of the declaration of results after collation has been completed. We therefore demand for the declaration of all results already collated and the return of the winners of the elections”, he said.
“Whilst we join well-meaning Nigerians to condemn the cases of violence which reportedly characterised the process in some areas, we enjoin the President and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of the Federal Republic of Nigeria to immediately constitute a panel to carry out a dispassionate investigation of the circumstances with a view to unravelling the truth and bringing the culprits to book.”
Sheriff further said: “Our long-held view, proven over the years by our attitude of accepting declared results of elections, is that the mandate of the Nigerian people is sacred and anybody or party which seeks to govern Nigeria or any part of it must solicit and obtain this mandate freely given in an openly contested election where democratic norms and ethos were rigidly observed.”
Taking a different position however, the APC called for the cancellation of the polls whose disruption it blamed and Wike and the riling PDP in the state.
Rivers state chairman of the party, Chief Davies Ikanya told newsmen in Port Harcourt yesterday that the outcome of the election was unacceptable because the process was not free, fair and credible.
“The position of Rivers APC is that the entire re-run elections in the state were marred by irregularities, violence and unlawful interference by the State Government. Inadequate security compromised the process, especially with indiscriminate, irregular and untrained ad-hoc staff,” he said.
According to him, the conduct of the elections fell below acceptable standard, as it was worse than the 2015 governorship election, and therefore called for its cancellation.
On the culpability of Wike and PDP, the party said : “The position of the APC is that the entire rerun election was marred by irregularities, violence and unlawful interference by Nyesom Wike, inadequate security, compromised process, especially with indiscriminate, irregular and untrained ad hoc staff in some cases, among other very serious issues.
“The APC calls on the INEC Chairman and its entire management team to cancel the Rivers State rerun elections, to enable all the pitfalls earlier enumerated to be corrected, before a fresh rerun election is held.”
“The first strategy of Nyesom Wike was to deliberately saturate the atmosphere with his threat of death and violence against INEC personnel for the re-run.
“The re-run elections witnessed a well-planned spate of violence by Nyesom Wike across Rivers State. It was glaring that security was inadequate across the state. The only fairly secure areas were the LGA headquarters, where a handful of police and army personnel were deployed, but were unable to effectively cover other volatile areas/population centres of the LGAs.
“In some places like Emohua, no returning and collation officers reported for work, giving way for unknown ad-hoc personnel to be recruited for a very sensitive job of results’ collation. In Gokana, Khana and Andoni LGAs, PDP thugs held electoral personnel hostage, leading to the suspension of the process.
“On election day, it became obvious that the incendiary messages of threat by Nyesom Wike had driven fear into trained ad-hoc personnel (of INEC), who got scared and refused to turn up for election duties. Subsequently, INEC field officers indiscriminately engaged the services of unknown persons, with no training and background checks whatsoever, to work as ad-hoc personnel,” the party added.
While berating INEC for attempting to accept and uphold ‘fake’ results, the APC further said, “in this re-run election, we established a pattern whereby INEC cancelled or suspended results in areas where the APC was winning. We find this unacceptable, especially when resuts smuggled in by the PDP were upheld.
“Nyesom Wike, in company of heavily-armed soldiers and policemen, with armoured personnel carriers, unlawfully visited collation centres in Port Harcourt City, Obio/Akpor, Ikwerre, Emohua LGAs and other areas, where he (Wike) intimidated electoral personnel and took over the collation of results in those areas and with the connivance of the DPOs, who provided further protection for fake INEC ad hoc staff to collate and declare results. This is in complete conflict of relevant electoral laws. The result of the entire exercise became compromised, as a result of the unlawful interference by Nyesom Wike.”
“Wike’s Secretary to the State Government, Kenneth Kobani, brazenly went to a RAC with thugs, shot guns and attempted to cause confusion and violence, before he was arrested. The Rivers Governor’s Special Adviser on Special Projects, Cyril Dum Wite, was caught with armed thugs in military uniform and N40 million cash on election day at Bori-Ogoni.”
The APC also called for the prosecution of the governor’s Chief of Staff, Emeka Woke and others arrested for allegedly attempting to assassinate the newly-appointed Director-General of the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA), Dakuku Peterside, his running mate during the 2015 governorship polls, Honourable Asita and Ikanya.
However, the state chairman of the PDP, Chief Felix Obuah, is rather calling for the arrest of Minister of Transportation, Rotimi Amaechi, Peterside and other party leaders for ‘initiating’ the electoral violence.
Meanwhile, IGP Solomon Arase has insisted that his men and officers were never found wanting during the polls.
Speaking yesterday in Abakaliki, Ebonyi state capital, Arase told journalists that: “It is not the police that ignite violence; it is the political class that ignites violence. All we do is to ensure we secure a conducive environment that can allow law abiding citizens to cast their votes in any election.
‘’The situation in Rivers has nothing to do with the Police; it has something to do with the political class. So, the police was neutral in the Rivers re-run and nobody can accuse us of bias or complicity or conniving with politicians or political party to frustrate the election’’, he said.
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