Tension hangs on Rivers on account of the yet-to-be declared results of the March 19, 2016 re-run elections in the state, Assistant Editor, South South, JOE EZUMA, writes.
Desperate to pick the outstanding seats in the March 19 Rivers State re-run elections, the All Progressives Congress (APC) and Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) are not leaving anything to chance. The areas that the results are yet to be declared include Rivers West, Rivers East and Rivers South-East senatorial districts. There are also some seats for the House of Representatives.
TheNiche investigation show that the desperation over the awaiting results has particularly heightened following APC’s loss of a number of seats it had hoped to win in the re-run election. The victory, the party had planned, would have enabled it to control the legislature and possibly remove the governor, Nyesom Wike, through impeachment. Though the turn-out of the re-run poll had made nonsense of the permutation, the party is not relenting in chalking the remaining seats.
PDP, on the other hand, is not taking the matter lightly. In fact, it had, since the 2015 general elections in which election in some parts of the state were declared inconclusive, been viewing every step by the APC with grave concern. This is especially as the party has never been comfortable with the antics of the ruling party at the centre.
It therefore saw the suspended declaration of the results of the March re-run as a move to rob it of representation at the Senate and some seats in the House of Representatives.
Abe cries out
In this waiting game, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and Senator Magnus Ngei Abe, who ran for the Rivers South-East on APC platform have been in the eye of the storm.
Abe, who represented the district in the last Senate, had accused PDP and its supporters in his constituency of not only trying to upstage him, but also to exterminate him.
He had, during the week, accused PDP of plotting to organise a protest march against the release of the Tai Local Government Council result of legislative re-run election.
A statement by his media aide, Pary Saro Benson, said: “The Media Committee of Senator Magnus Abe Campaign Organisation has uncovered another plot of the Rivers State chapter of the Peoples Democratic Party to discredit Tai Local Government Area result by organising a protest march.”
This was, however, against the claim of Wike and PDP that the APC and the INEC in the state were working in cahoots to shortage PDP.
Nwike had pointedly stressed that he had lost confidence in the INEC “because the commission is too inconsistent, as it works to promote the interest of All Progressives Congress in Rivers State”.
He specifically accused APC of using INEC to generate tension by attempting to manipulate the electoral process for eight local government areas where the Commission had already cancelled elections during the re-run elections, stressing that it was suspicious on INEC to institute a committee to review results of elections it had earlier cancelled.
Warning that the move could be a recipe for crisis, Wike recalled that the APC, after the March 19 poll, issued statements calling for the cancellation of the elections. He wondered why the same APC had made a U-turn by approaching the election tribunal to declare her candidates winners.
The governor alleged that by refusing to file defence for the declared results at the election tribunals, INEC was exhibiting tacit support for APC, arguing that despite its antics, money could not influence the result of the polls in favour of the opposition party in the state.
Money factor was, incidentally, the major plank of allegation against the governor by Senator Abe. The statement by his media handlers had alleged that Wike had set aside millions of naira from the tax-payers money to fund the protest, pointing out that the governor was so obsessed with stopping him that he would not mind how much of development fund goes into the drain for it.
The statement said: “Wike had before this time lavishly spent a lot of money to produce a documentary of falsehood and distortion, which he aired on television stations to discredit the result but could not convince the right-thinking citizens of Rivers State.
“Wike and his cohorts further resorted to using the social media to make unguarded utterances against INEC in order to deter it from releasing the Tai LGA result when the monetary inducement failed.”
The statement added that “no amount of arm-twisting and wrenching by Wike and PDP will stop the will of Rivers South-East people from sending Abe to the Senate to continue his good works on the implementation of the UNEP (United Nations Environment Programme) report and other sundry interests of the people”.
It further stated that the governor’s desperation had made him to double-speak, such that at one time, he would say President Muhammadu Buhari had unleashed the federal might on the state to rig the elections, at another time, he would exonerate Buhari.
Abe had the support of his party, the APC, which added that the alleged action of the governor is part of his efforts to stop him (Abe) at all costs from emerging victorious in the suspended Rivers South-East re-run election.
PDP warns
In what appeared a riposte, the PDP, during the week, warned that “any attempt to announce results for elections not held whether in Tai Local Government Area or elsewhere will be considered an affront not only on our party but also the entire Rivers people and will be resisted accordingly”.
The party claimed that Abe “is unrepentant and hell-bent on securing from the backdoor an eluded victory he cannot get through the polls”.
PDP, in reaction to Abe’s comments on the re-run election in Tai, described him as a pathological liar.
Its chairman, Felix Obuah, said: “It’s well known that elections in the four local government areas in Ogoni, including Tai, were suspended by the Independent National Electoral Commission, as soon as it was discovered that the election materials for the concerned areas had been hijacked by Barry Mpigi of the APC.
“We are therefore sounding it as a note of warning that any attempt to announce results for elections not held whether in Tai Local Government or elsewhere will be considered an affront not only on our party but also the entire Rivers people and will be resisted accordingly.”
