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By Paul Williams
Days to the March 18 governorship polls, a chieftain of the Labour Party (LP) in Rivers State, Prince Fafaa Dan Princewill, has called for a violence-free polls, that would enthrone good governance and democratic values in the state.
Dan Princewill, in a chat with newsmen in Port Harcourt, urged Rivers people to vote, not just for the physical exercise, but to reflect on the quality of leadership that they want, and to ensure that it is one that promotes good governance and tackles the challenges of infant mortality, unemployment among others.
“I want to call on the youths of Rivers State to come out en mass to vote for candidates of their choice. Clearly, of course, my bias is that they should vote for the Labour Party,” he said.
Dan Princewill, who claimed to the gubernatorial candidate of the Labour Party for Rivers State, noted that violence has no place in a democracy, called on Rivers people “to come out peacefully, in their huge numbers, and take advantage of the privileges and rights of citizenship at an election time.”
He noted that the challenges of unemployment and others confronting the society have long been subjects of public discourse, but lamented that “many people that talk about these issues have not taken time to reflect on solutions to them.
“I believe that the Labour Party has done that. There is a lot of result-orientedness in the Labour Party, oozing from the leadership of His Excellency Peter Obi,” he said.
Following allegations of irregularities in the February 25 presidential polls, and suggestions of a likely voter-apathy in the March 11 governorship polls, Dan Princewill urged Rivers people “not to despair.”
He urged them to go out and vote this Saturday, adding that “when you vote this time, make sure you stay and defend your votes. You must make sure your votes count and that you defend it.”
Stressing that the call to defend their votes is not a call to violence, Dan Princewill said electoral violence has no place in decent society, nor in the “new Rivers State.” A new Rivers State, which he said will tackle the issues of violence, in whatever form it takes, head on.
He called for “a process that will lead to good governance,” stressing that “the way and process in which leadership emerges has a lot to do with the quality of governance that comes.
“Any product of brigandage, any product of gangsterism, any product of anti-democratic tendencies, can only yield a gangster government, a government without feeling and compassion for the people, and one without direction,” Dan Princewill said.
