The Nation Newspaper

Tag: Rivers election

  • Seven killed, eight arrested during Rivers polls

    Seven killed, eight arrested during Rivers polls

    At least seven persons were killed in the rerun parliamentary election that took place in all the 23 local government areas of Rivers State on Saturday.

    Although the identities of the victims or the persons who that them had not been established, our correspondent gathered that one of the dead victims an immigration officer serving in the state.

    The deceased was reportedly killed at Abalama in Asari Toru local government area of the state when unknown gunmen opened fire on the people.

    At Eleme local government area, four persons were killed, while one was killed in Nonwa, Tai LGA.

    One person was also shot dead at Ogboloko community in Abua/Odual LGA of the state.

    Attempts by our correspondent to get the state police spokesman, Ahmad Mohammad, to comment on the matter were unsuccessful.

     

  • Rivers election: Police warn trouble makers

    Rivers election: Police warn trouble makers

    Mr. Sotonye Wakama, Deputy Inspector-General of Police (DIG), Operations, on Wednesday, warned politicians and their supporters against causing trouble during the March 19 re-run legislative election in Rivers.

    He gave the warning in Port Harcourt while addressing politicians and police officers ahead of the election.

    The DIG advised politicians and their supporters bent on fomenting trouble, to have a re-think or face justice.

    According to him, intelligence report indicates that some politicians have hired and kept some people in a hotel, with the intention of using them to terrorise their opponents during the election.

    The DIG assured that the group and their sponsors would be dealt with, irrespective of their social standing in the society.

    ‘’We are not begging or appealing to anybody or group.

    ‘’If you like, come that day with guns and cutlasses, the police are battle ready.

    ‘’No matter who you are in the country, we will deal with you when you contravene the law; the law will be stretched.

    ‘’We are not here to plead, the law will be stretched; things have gotten beyond what could be tolerated.

    ‘’It is time to stop this nonsense,’’ he said.

    Wakama said the police had arrested some suspects in connection with the Omoku mayhem.

    In his contribution, Mr Aniedi Ikoiwak, INEC Resident Electoral Commissioner in Rivers, said it was not possible for the commission to conduct peaceful election without the cooperation of politicians.

    He therefore appealed to them to cooperate with INEC towards ensuring a hitch-free election.

    Ikoiwak said 6800 members of National Youth Service Corpse (NYSC) would participate in the conduct of the polls.

    In their separate remarks, representatives of political parties assured that their supporters would be peaceful during and after the election.

     

  • Parties disagree on INEC’s refusal to allow inspection of Rivers election materials

    Parties disagree on INEC’s refusal to allow inspection of Rivers election materials

    •APC, Peterside: INEC working with Wike, PDP to frustrate our petition 

    THE All Progressives Congress (APC) and its Rivers State governorship candidate in the last general elections, Dakuku Peterside, yesterday disagreed with Governor Nyesom Wike, his party, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) on the propriety of the commission’s refusal to allow the inspection of the electoral materials used in the election.

    The Election Petitions Tribunal, on June 11, following an ex-parte application by APC and Peterside, who are challenging Wike’s election, ordered INEC to allow the petitioners to inspect the elections materials to prove their case.

    But INEC has refused to obey the order till date.

    The petitioners’ lawyer, Akin Olujinmi (SAN), told the tribunal yesterday that INEC’s refusal to allow his clients’ agents to inspect the materials indicated that there was an alliance among INEC, Wike and the PDP to frustrate the hearing of the petition.

    But INEC, Wike and PDP argued that it would have been wrong for the commission to allow the inspection of the election materials when Wike’s applications challenging the tribunal’s jurisdiction and the propriety of the June 11 order were still pending.

    Olujinmi, in a counter-argument to Wike’s application, urged the tribunal to among others, set aside the June 11 order.

    The eminent lawyer urged the tribunal to dismiss Wike’s application on the grounds that the order was not directed at him but at INEC – to allow the inspection.

    He said Wike’s decision to challenge an order that did not affect him and INEC’s refusal to obey the court’s order formed part of the plot by the PDP, Wike and INEC to frustrate the proceedings before the tribunal.

    Olujinmi urged the tribunal to halt the disregard of its order.

    He said: “We have shown that INEC has not objected to the tribunal’s order and, today, they have confessed before the tribunal that they disobeyed the order for the inspection because the second respondent (Wike) filed a motion seeking the setting aside of the order.

    “Even the order for inspection was obtained and directed at INEC, but INEC has not formally complained to the tribunal about that order. But they chose, on their own, not to obey the order. This, again, shows the shenanigan underlying this application to set aside the order for inspection.

    “It is designed to legalise the conspiracy between the first and second respondents (INEC and Wike) to frustrate the tribunal’s order. The law is that, if the court is told that the order it made is being disparaged, dishonoured, disobeyed and disrespected, the court has a duty to take firm and decisive steps to ensurethat the order is obeyed.”

    The eminent lawyer said Wike’s application was without merit, adding that the contradiction was in the reasons the applicant gave in seeking to set aside the order.

    He noted that Wike, in one breath, argued that the order for the inspection posed a threat to national security; on the other hand, he urged the tribunal to allow his agents to participate in the inspection.

    Olujinmi urged the tribunal to disregard Wike’s prayers on the grounds that it acted within its powers under Section 151 of the Electoral Act, which empowers the tribunal to order INEC to allow any party to a petition to inspect materials used during the election from being challenged.

    The lawyer faulted the argument by Wike’s lawyer, Emmanuel Ukala (SAN), that the order was made when the tribunal had not determined whether or not it possessed the jurisdiction to sit in Abuja. Olujinmi noted that while the order was granted on June 11, Wike’s application against the tribunal’s jurisdiction was filed on June 17.

    Ukala, arguing his client’s application, stressed the need for the tribunal to set aside the order for the inspection.

    The lawyer argued that it ought not to be granted ex-parte and that it was made by the tribunal without jurisdiction.

    He contended that the tribunal could not be moved to exercise its powers under Section 151 of the Electoral Act through ex-parte application. He said such application must be made on notice so that the other party could be heard.

    Ukala argued that it was within the tribunal’s powers to set aside the order it made in error and without according his client the right to fair hearing.  He said it was not current that his client raised the issue of jurisdiction after the order had been made.

    He said his client had raised the issue of jurisdiction and challenged the competence of the petition in his reply to the petition filed before the tribunal on June 4.

    Lawyers to the PDP and INEC, I. A. Adedipe (SAN) and Onyechi Ikpeazu (SAN), supported Wike’s lawyer’s position.

    But Ikpeazu insisted that INEC refrained from obeying the June 11 order because of Wike’s pending applications.

    He said the commission was reluctant not to foist a state of helplessness on the tribunal.

    The tribunal, headed by Justice Muazu Pindiga adjourned till July 9 for ruling.

     

     

     

     

     

  • Rivers election didn’t meet minimal standard, says observer

    Rivers election didn’t meet minimal standard, says observer

    The results of the presidential, senatorial and House of Representatives elections are expected today. While election observers are still collating their findings, Ibrahim Zikrullah of the Transitional Monitoring Group (TMG) gave DW an insight into his impression of how the elections went. 

    What are your preliminary findings about the elections so far?

    Ibrahim Zikrullah: I think the election was generally fair. Of course we have Rivers State, where the election did not meet minimal standards of any recognised election. The state security took over the role of INEC. They were beating up people, smashing ballots and falsifying results. The problem with the card readers did not help matters because in some places they couldn’t verify the Permanent Voter Cards (PVC). And in our view the manual verification compromised the purpose of the card reader.

    So, you’re saying that claims from the opposition All Progressives Congress (APC), that there were irregularities in Rivers State are founded.

    Yes. As I speak to you, there are huge protests at the INEC headquarters in Rivers State. In most of the polling units, result sheets were not delivered and those were the sheets that were falsified.

    Were there irregularities in other states?

    In Akwa Ibom observers were chased away. Two of our observers were arrested. They were released late at night. Even when they could not find anything criminal about them and they were identified by INEC, the police insisted that they should pay bribes. We started spreading the news through social media and people started commenting on it until they released the two observers. And people were chased away. Party agents were chased fom the polling units and at the end of the day, results were declared in some polling units.

    We also had a case in Gombe, in the polling unit where the governor cast his ballot. The results were moving in favor of the opposition and some people accompanied by police came and snatched the ballot box away. So we have pockets of those scenes.

    Do you think these irregularities will affect the outcome of the polls?

    I don’t think so, because we have 36 states plus Abuja, so 37 in all, and 774 local governments. I think that if we have irregularities in four to five percent , they can’t be used to judge the election as not valid. However in those areas where there were irregularities, the results could be cancelled and fresh elections organized.

    Your organisation is also doing its own tallying of results. Can you describe how that works?

    We have 4,000 observers who go to the field and confirm their data through coded text messages. The system analyses the data that comes in and we are able to understand the trends of the election in real time.

    For example, yesterday, we reported about the arrival of the election officials at 7:30 a.m. At 11:30 a.m. we were able to report about the setting up of polling units that had opened for accreditation. We reported on all the processes up to the voting.

    What we don’t immediately reveal, is the results. We collect results from the polling units where they are still very pure. The experience has shown that when the results are being moved from one polling unit to the next, we begin to see additions and subtractions. And we have a margin of error. So if the results that are declared by INEC fall within the margin of error, we can confirm that the result is justified. The moment they begin to diverge from this, we can expose the fraud.

    So on a scale of one to ten, how would you rate the polls on credibility?

    I think I can give it an eight.

     

    Ibrahim Zikrullah is chariman of the Transitional Monitoring Group (TMG), a Nigerian independent election monitoring group.