- Says state too critical to be disrupted
By Daniel Kanu
The vice presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the February 23 presidential election, Mr Peter Obi, has advised the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to ensure that the will of people prevails as it resumes collation of results in Rivers State.
Obi gave the advice in a statement issued by his Media Office on Monday in Abuja.
INEC has fixed between April 2 and April 5 for the collation of results for the March 9 Rivers State Governorship Election, which was earlier suspended due to disruption and violence.
Obi said that the needless stretch of Rivers people can only be compensated if their will is allowed to prevail in all elective positions in the state.
He said INEC should see the collation of results in Rivers State as an opportunity to clean up what he described as the Commission’s “dented image that arose from their questionable handling of the February 23 and March 9 presidential and gubernatorial polls respectively.”
Obi said Rivers people “should not have been subjected to the agony of waiting for more than 20 days before hearing the results,” adding that “it happened that power found its way into the hands of some rascals who flagrantly abused it.”
The former governor of Anambra State said “the militarisation of the elections in Rivers and other South South states remain the sour side of the 2019 general elections for which the image of the country suffered grossly.”
Obi, who saluted the resilience of the people and urged them to remain resolute said Rivers was so critical to the economic and political development of the country that a serious government should not contribute to its destabilisation because of attendant far reaching implications to the fragile national economy.
“Aside the fact that Rivers State is a traditional PDP state, the performance of its gubernatorial flag bearer, Barrister Neyesom Wike, in the last four years makes it imperative that no other party would be able to compete effectively in the state,” Obi concluded.