Senator Magnus Abe, All Progressives Congress (APC) candidate for Rivers Southeast, Senator Magnus Abe, has expressed reservation on the activities of Independent Electoral Commission (INEC) to conduct tomorrow’s legislative rerun.
Addressing reporters in Port Harcourt, the state capital, Abe said INEC had been conducting its affairs to the knowledge of Governor Nyesom Wike and the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).
The senator said collation and returning officers were being trained at an obscure hotel in Umuahia, Abia State capital.
He said: “We are becoming concerned about the activities and linkages that we are seeing between PDP and INEC. We just received a report this evening that the INEC collation and returning officers were being trained at the Dangreet Hotel in Umuahia in Abia State.
“From our knowledge of the operations of INEC, no training of officers has ever been conducted in any obscure hotel in this country. Training of officers is always done in the universities where the officers are picked from. And from the universities, they are taken to the state where they are to do their jobs.
“But to hear that collation and returning officers were being trained at the Dangreet Hotel in Umuahia in the presence of PDP agents, when our agents were not informed or aware of it, certainly calls for concern. We believe that in this exercise, INEC should not only be fair but also be seen by Nigerians to be fair.
“We are concerned because of the relationship that exists between some of the key actors in this thing and some of the key players in the INEC structure. We think Nigerians must be vigilant as far as this Rivers rerun is concerned; all parties should be evenly and fairly treated.”
On the election date, Abe said INEC only discussed it with Wike, who he said was an interested party.
According to him, the governor announced the rerun date before INEC did.
Abe said: “I have had cause to tell Nigerians that this December 10 date was fixed at a meeting between Governor Wike and INEC to which we were not privy, involved and consulted. The first person that made the date public was Governor Wike… We will see how that will work.”