14th February, 2019
Okafor Ofiebor/Port Harcourt
Candidates and members of the All Progressives Congress, APC, loyal to Tonye Cole in Rivers State at 8.00am on Thursday barricaded the head office of the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, in Port Harcourt, accusing the electoral body of conniving with the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, to deny its candidates’ participation in the forthcoming general election.
Obo Effanga, the Resident Electoral Commissioner, who arrived the office was barred from entering his office.
The peaceful protest led by Oji Ngofa, Ambassador of Nigeria to Netherlands, who is the APC Senatorial candidate for Rivers South East accused INEC of receiving service on the stay of execution order by the Court of Appeal on the judgment of Justice Kolawole Omotosho of a Federal High Court but wondered why INEC had refused to comply with the order.
He wondered why Governor Nyesom Wike and PDP were afraid of the opposition party, alleging that the governor had bribed all the institutions in the state to pave way for him to ride freely to an undeserved re-election, but vowed that the APC would resist him and his members.
The ambassador further said that they would remain at the INEC’s office until the right thing was done, saying that if the electoral umpire refused to obey the order, there would not be election in Rivers State.
Receiving the protesting group on behalf of the Resident Electoral Commission, REC, who was reportedly out of the state, a Senior official, Mr. Edwin Enabo, thanked the protesters for their orderly and peaceful conduct but said that the INEC in Rivers State was handicapped on their request and pleaded with them to channel their agitation to the Commission’s national headquarters in Abuja.
The protesting APC members carried placards with different inscriptions including,”Wike has bribed INEC to exclude APC”, “No APC, no election in Rivers State”; “INEC we deserve justice”; “INEC must obey court order”, among others.
Before the protest, the state government had issued a statement warning that APC wanted to protest with the sole aim disrupting INEC’s planned election in the statement.