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… Warns Elections Will Not Hold in Rivers
By Joel Anekwe
National and State Assembly candidates of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Rivers State have demanded that the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) should return their names on the list of candidates to contest the forthcoming general elections.
The candidates also demanded that INEC should tender an apology to them for de-listing them from the list of participants for the elections, warning that elections will not hold in Rivers State until INEC does the right thing.
Addressing a press conference in Port Harcourt Thursday, the candidates argued that INEC was wrong in removing their names from the candidates list, adding that courts on whose judgement INEC relied on to de-list their names was wrong.
Henry Odili, candidate for the Ogba/Egbema/Ndoni/Ahoada West Federal Constituency in the House of Representatives who spoke on behalf of the candidates also demanded that INEC should give same “enabling time and environment for political campaigns to APC in Rivers as they have given to the PDP and other parties.”
He threatened that there would be no elections in Rivers State until the two conditions were met and “all the pending cases before various counts have gone through their courses to the apex court for final decisions and right to fair hearing guaranteed.”
They insisted that the Nigerian Constitution gives political parties right to carry out the process of nominating candidates for election in accordance with their own guidelines, adding that the constitution was crafted such that the courts would not interfere with it, but that the courts in Rivers State have willfully violated this thereby affecting the rights of Rivers people to freely choose their representatives.”
“We are aware that no section In the Electoral Act 2010 (As Amended) or the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria empowered INEC or the courts to de-list any duly nominated candidate whose name had been submitted by the party and acknowledged by INEC without their voluntary withdrawal or death,” the candidates stated.
They went on: “We are also aware that there was no suit, not to talk of subsisting court order, stopping APC from holding primaries in Rivers State. This is notwithstanding the fact that section 87 (10) of the Electoral Act 2010, (as amended) clearly prohibits the courts from stopping the holding of the primaries of any political party even pending the determination of any suit in court.”
They said that they had long been silent but decided to speak up and let Nigerians know the true position of the political happenings in Rivers State.
The candidates accused the state governor, Nyesom Wike, of colluding with the courts and the Independent National Electoral Commission to exclude the APC from participating in the 2019 elections.
“We are surprised that Governor Wike who prides himself as ‘Mr.Project’ and the PDP that claims to be the popular party in Rivers State are afraid to go into a free and fair election/contest in the state with APC,” they said.
Odili further alleged: “It is on record that Gov. Wike boasted and informed his party (PDP) members who have also made it their mantra long before Justice Nworgu gave his infamous judgement that APC would not have candidates in Rivers State to run against him and other PDP candidates. And what has transpired between him, the courts and INEC is a manifestation of this boast of this boast and his fear/trepidation of going into election against APC candidates in Rivers State.”
