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… Besiege INEC Office to Demand Relisting Of Candidates
By Joel Anekwe
Contrary to widely held view that the Rivers State chapter of the All Progressives Congress APC will not participate in the coming elections, the party has come out to say that its name would certainly be on the ballot paper for the elections.
Rising from a meeting of the State Working Committee Thursday the party stated “the APC and its candidates will now, most certainly, be on the ballot this Saturday.”
Explaining the reason behind the declaration, publicity secretary of the party, Chris Finebone said” No order or judgement given since, including orders given by the Supreme Court on both jurisdiction and representation have said otherwise.”
He said the party arrived at the decision after “meticulously deliberating on the recent court rulings of various courts especially the decision of the Court of Appeal sitting in Port Harcourt Wednesday, to further re-affirm two earlier orders that stayed the execution of the judgments of the lower court. Our conclusion is that the APC and its candidates will now, most certainly, be on the ballot this Saturday.”
“We opted not to rely on a media circus to convey our right to be included. Unlike the many news reports that were suggesting we were dead and buried, we have since seen the orders and the Supreme Court judgement on the stay of execution which proves beyond reasonable doubt that INEC has an obligation to relist APC or risk being sanctioned for excluding us and disobeying a subsisting court order”, the Rivers APC added.
Finebone went on “We hail once again both decisions of the stay of execution, taken by the Court of Appeal recently and their reaffirmation of both yesterday. These decisions mean that nothing is stopping INEC from placing APC on the ballot. We welcome the moves by INEC to put us back on the ballot, as the alternative would have confirmed once and for all, the genuine fear that they are working for the PDP”.
“We wish to state advisedly that obedience to the rule of law is the best antidote to anarchy. In the circumstances, we urge INEC to speedily implement the rule of law and return our great party to its rightful place. We are only demanding a right to compete.
“I want to once again hail the decision of the Supreme Court to refuse moves by Senator Magnus Abe and his lawyers to appeal the stays of execution. Nobody is in any doubt now that the Supreme Court’s throwing out of their appeal against our stays of execution, speaks volumes. In summary, it means that the stays still subsist. That is the clear position of the law. The stay orders, the details of the Supreme Court judgement and our formal letter to INEC are hereby attached for your perusal.
“We have passed the stage of worrying if we will be on the ballot. We must now prepare to punish those who have been trying to keep us out of the elections with our votes. With these same votes, we must give Mr. President our full support. He stood by our leader because our leader had always stood by him and if you want to keep getting what you are getting, you have to keep doing what you are doing.”
He urged people everybody must come out and vote APC to deny PDP any sight of government and help our President secure his second term in office.
In a related development, members of the Rivers State chapter of the All Progressives Congress APC, in their hundreds, took over the state office of the Independent National Electoral Commission INEC in Port Harcourt, demanding the relisting of the party’s candidates for the elections.
The protesters who were led by Oji Ngofa, Nigerian Ambassador to the Netherlands and the candidate representing the APC in the Rivers South East Senatorial District blocked the traffic on the Port Harcourt-Aba expressway as well as the INEC office refusing anyone from either entering or leaving the office.
They demanded that the Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC), Oboh Effanga address them.
The REC later addressed them assuring them that the Commission would meet on their demand and thereafter act on whatever decision arrived at the meeting. But he was still refused entry into the office forcing him to enter his car and left the place.
After Effanga’s address the protesters insisted on remaining at the office until the end of the INEC meeting and the names of the candidates were put on the ballot paper.
This made the security agencies comprising the army, police and Civil Defence to fire canisters of tear gas into air forcing the protesters as well as on-lookers to scamper away from the place.