Fixing December 10 by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to conclude the March 19 legislative rerun in Rivers State has heightened tension in the hitherto volatile Niger Delta state. Our Bureau Chief in Port Harcourt, Bisi Olaniyi, writes on the gladiators and the controversies surrounding the inconclusive elections across the three senatorial districts of the state
IT is becoming obvious that the December 10 legislative rerun in Rivers State will be a supremacy battle between the Minister of Transportation, Rotimi Amaechi, and former Minister of State for Education, Governor Nyesom Wike.
Amaechi, a former governor of Rivers State and ex-Chairman of the Nigeria Governors’ Forum (NGF) is still seeing his successor (Wike), whom he made his Chief of Staff between 2007 and 2011, who later became the Director-General of Amaechi Re-election Campaign Organisation in 2011, as one of his former “boys” and a “small boy.”
The closeness between the then NGF Chairman and Wike made him to recommend the latter in 2011 to the then President Goodluck Jonathan for ministerial appointment.
Both Amaechi, now a chieftain of the All Progressives Congress (APC) and Wike, of the PDP, are both Ikwerre. Amaechi hails from Ubima in Ikwerre LGA, while Wike is an indigene of Rumueprikom-Port Harcourt in Obio/Akpor LGA of the state.
In an attempt to conclude the March 19 legislative rerun in Rivers State, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) fixed July 30. It was postponed to October because the electoral commission’s office in Bori-Ogoni, the headquarters of Khana LGA of the state was set ablaze by unknown persons on July 22. INEC is now poised to hold the rerun on December 10, “provided there is no threat to security of lives and property.”
The Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC) of INEC in Rivers State, Aniedi Ikoiwak, assured that the electoral commission would not take sides with any political party, while promising that the rerun would be free, fair and credible.
The rerun will hold in eight of Rivers State’s 23 LGAs, where INEC suspended elections on March 19 and some units across the three senatorial districts of the state, where elections had not been concluded.
Rivers State currently has no Senator in the National Assembly, while INEC will also conduct rerun in five of the 13 seats of the House of Representatives and elections will equally hold for 22 of the 32 seats of the Rivers House of Assembly.
Many Rivers residents, who pleaded not to be named for security reason, have confided they will relocate from the state during the rerun to avoid being injured, maimed or killed, considering the fact that over 100 innocent persons, mostly members of the APC, lost their lives during the 2015 General Elections and March 19 rerun in the state, with most of the victims beheaded and their heads taken away by their killers.
While reacting to the new date for the rerun, Wike said he was not convinced that INEC would conduct the elections on December 10, stressing that insecurity would again be cited as reason to further postpone the elections, despite the Senate’s directive to the electoral commission that the polls must be held on or before December 10 or plenary would be suspended indefinitely.
Wike noted that the fact that the new date was announced less than 24 hours after the Senate’s ultimatum was an indication that INEC had been lying to the people that insecurity was behind the repeated postponement of the elections.
The Rivers governor alleged that INEC and its anti-democratic elements would adduce reasons why the election might not be conducted, on the same premise of security consideration.
APC’s governorship candidate in Rivers state during last year’s election, Dr. Dakuku Peterside, however, welcomed the directive of the Senate to INEC to conduct the legislative rerun in the state not later than December 10, assuring that the APC in Rivers was ready for the elections and would use the opportunity to prove that the party would win any election in a free and fair atmosphere, devoid of threats, killings and intimidation.
He called on INEC to ensure that it made necessary arrangements for the rerun and to put in place measures that would make it difficult for electoral thugs to cause violence and intimidate the voters.
Peterside, who is also the Director-General of the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA), tasked the Rivers State governor to stop intimidating INEC officials and the commission’s ad hoc staff with death threats, but to rather cooperate with INEC and its officials to ensure successful polls.
The former member of the House of Representatives said “Threats to the electorate by the Rivers State governor is demeaning of his office and smacks of the height of uncouthness and you can be sure that the people will resist him.”
Rivers State Chairman of the PDP, Chief Felix Obuah, also toed the line of the state’s governor, by not having confidence in INEC and its officials to conduct free, fair and credible rerun on December 10.
APC Chairman in Rivers, Chief Davies Ikanya, however, expressed optimism that the better and more acceptable candidates of the party would emerge victorious during the elections, stressing that PDP members only knew how to win at the polls through rigging and violence. Shortly after INEC fixed December 10 for the rerun, trouble started in Rivers State.
The magnificent campaign office Senator Magnus Abe, the Chairman of the Senate Committee on Petroleum (Downstream) in the 7th National Assembly, at Bori, the traditional headquarters of Ogoniland, was recently bombed and razed down.
There are allegations that Abe, the ex-Secretary to the Rivers State Government (SSG) in the Amaechi’s administration, who hails from Bera-Ogoni in Gokana LGA, is one of the major headaches of the ruling party. The senator was APC’s governorship aspirant last year, before he was persuaded to remain in the Senate.
But PDP’s candidate for Rivers Southeast Senatorial District, Olaka Worgu, who is a former member of the House of Representatives (for 16 years), expressed optimism that he and other candidates of the ruling PDP in the state would emerge victorious during the rerun, in view of their competence, experience and commitment to serve the people.
Peterside, the governorship candidate of the APC during the 2015 election in Rivers State, however said that Rivers people were already tired of the PDP’s government in the state, insisting that the bad governance by the Wike-led administration was retarding the progress of the state, with Rivers in reverse gear, in view of bad governance.
Determined to drag leaders of the APC into the rerun war in the state, on November 5 this year, Wike alleged that a plot by the agents of Rivers main opposition party (APC) to rig the elections in Rivers Southeast Senatorial District, where Abe, APC’s senatorial candidate, hails from, had been uncovered, claiming that the police burst fake result sheets printing syndicate in Port Harcourt.
The Rivers governor, in an online statement by his Special Assistant on Electronic Media, Simeon Nwakaudu, claimed that the printing press, Help-Mate Consult, at No. 12, Isiokpo Street, Direct Main Line (D-Line) in the Rivers State capital, was printing the fake result sheets for seven Rivers LGAs (Ogoni’s four LGAs: Khana, Gokana, Tai and Eleme, as well as Andoni, Opobo/Nkoro and Oyigbo LGAs) of the Rivers Southeast Senatorial District, when policemen allegedly stormed the facility, upon a tip-off by a concerned Nigerian.
Wike said: “Director of Help-Mate Consult, Atonye Peters, a prominent member of the APC from Opobo/Nkoro LGA of Rivers State, claimed that the printing contract was given to him by Mr. Emma Chindah, an APC leader (ex-Rivers Commissioner for Agriculture in Amaechi’s administration). According to him (Peters), the printing press has already completed two sets for two LGAs, before the police got wind of the illegal act.
“He (Peters) was arrested alongside three of his staff, Richard Koko from Okrika LGA, Nanee Godday from Khana LGA and Tammy Garrick. Items recovered by the police at the printing press include state-of-the-art printing machine and computers.
“The police also recovered INEC result sheets and serial number booklets, which the printer used to authenticate the result sheets.”
Rivers chairman of the APC, while reacting through the state’s Publicity Secretary of the party, Chris Finebone, declared that the Rivers governor and members of his PDP deployed thugs in fake sting operations in the state.
Ikanya said: “A few days after INEC announced that the Rivers rerun elections have been fixed for December 10, Wike and the PDP have used thugs to stage what they called ‘bursting of a fake result sheets printing syndicate in Port Harcourt,’ said to be operated by a purported APC chieftain.
“Rivers APC wishes to state that no APC person, chieftain or ordinary member, was involved in any of the purported actions, as alleged by Wike and the PDP, assuming without conceding that any such development took place.
“What Rivers governor and PDP are doing this time round is to use their thugs to stage a drama and arrest some innocent persons and detain them in the Port Harcourt Government House, without the knowledge of the Nigerian police.
“Sadly, the information we hear is that the present melodrama is being carried out by Wike and the PDP, using one Mr. Igbani of the SOS (Swift Operation Squad of the Rivers State Police Command), who is a well-known PDP sympathizer, whom former Rivers Police Commissioner, Mbu Joseph Mbu, used to perpetrate his evil machinations in Rivers State in the past.
“Information at our disposal indicates that PDP and Wike’s thugs are going to individual APC members’ homes to plant incriminating materials, then turn around to harass and illegally arrest and detain them, with the help of the likes of Mr. Igbani. The activities of this police officer and his associates will be properly unveiled to the public in due course.
Chairman of APC in Rivers State also stated that APC had a zero-tolerance for electoral malpractices and would not directly or indirectly engage in any form of electoral malfeasance. Ikanya admonished Rivers people and other Nigerians not to fall for Wike’s antics, deliberately contrived to tarnish the image of the APC and its members in the Niger Delta state.
Rivers police Spokesman, Nnamdi Omoni, a Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP), however declined to give details of how the printers were arrested, but said the matter had been transferred to the Zone 6 Police Command Headquarters in Calabar, the Cross River State capital.
APC’s candidate for Rivers Southeast Senatorial District (Abe) also admonished monarchs in the state to caution the Rivers State Governor not to drag the traditional institution into divisive politics.
Abe, in a letter to the Chairman of the Rivers State Council of Traditional Rulers, King Dandeson Douglas Jaja, who is the Amayanabo of Opobo Kingdom, the headquarters of Opobo/Nkoro LGA of the state, stated that right-thinking Rivers people should view with serious concern, the threat by Wike to sack traditional rulers on political grounds.
The former Rivers SSG (Abe) noted that although the Rivers governor had politicised everything in the state, taking it to the traditional rulers would be setting a dangerous precedent that might not augur well for the peace and progress of the state.
Peterside in his reaction accused Wike of becoming increasingly restless and desperate to investigate, try and jail arrested alleged printers of fake result sheets of INEC. As the verbal crossfire persists, there is tension in the state. Concerned observers are calling for prayers to ensure no life is lost in the forthcoming rerun in Rivers State.” For example, the Chairman of Port Harcourt Conference of CAC, Pastor Godwin Osuigbo, has urged Wike to carry all the people of the state along, irrespective of their political affiliation. This is because when two elephants fight, the grass will definitely suffer.