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By Joel Anekwe
The Coalition of Governorship Candidates, the Inter Party Advisory Council (IPAC) and Coalition of Political Parties (CUPP) in Rivers State has called on the chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Mahmood Yakubu to disregard calls by what they termed “a few APC sponsored governorship candidates for the transfer of the Rivers State resident electoral commissioner and the state administrative secretary of INEC.”
The group which claims to represent 86 political parties and 54 governorship candidates in the state also condemned “the criminal use of the Nigerian Army by the APC to abduct electoral officers and snatch already collated results for the purpose of rigging the governorship election in favour of the APC supported candidates.”
They alleged that the call for the redeployment of the REC and the INEC state administrative officer was sponsored by the minister of Transportation and the APC with the aim of “creating the ugly atmosphere for the concoction of results and rigging of the Rivers State governorship election.”
IPAC which said that the state’s PDP governorship candidate, Chief Nyesom Wike has won the election lamented that “the APC led soldiers of the Nigerian Army to invade the state collation centre at INEC headquarters in Port Harcourt, which was captured on camera and broadcast on some electronic media,” adding that the whole world had seen how they planned to bring in cooked results to alter the will of Rivers people.
“We also condemn the military for disrupting the collation of price for the governorship election in Rivers State. We call on President Buhari to take immediate steps to punish all the military personnel involved in the coup against democracy.
“Our position is strengthened by the fact that the Chief of Army Staff (COAS) has denied ordering the criminal activities of the Nigerian Army at the Rivers State Governorship Collation Centre at INEC headquarters.
“The mischievous call by these sponsored governorship candidates is diversionary and aimed at disrupting the collation process and the lawful declaration of Governor Wike as duly re-elected.”
They urged INEC to immediately re-start the process of collating the governorship election results based on official results declared at all polling units where collation should be based on official INEC staff and ad-hoc personnel detailed to conduct the elections.