Rivers: APC Insists on Fresh Rerun Elections, Accuses INEC of Awarding Victories To PDP

The Rivers State Chapter of the All Progressives Congress (APC) has asked

for a total cancellation of the Rivers State STate and National Assembly
election rerun, accusing the Independent National Electoral Commission,
INEC of awarding victories to the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP

The APC said INEC merely allocated “votes to the ruling party in the
State, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), by the Independent National
Electoral Commission (INEC) to avoid being killed by Wike and his gang of
killers.”

The party in a statement signed by its State Chairman, Dr. Davies Ibiamu
Ikanya, outrightly rejected the results so far announced by INEC, saying
that nothing but the total cancellation of the process and the holding of
fresh rerun polls would be acceptable to it.

“We wish to put on record our total and uncompromising rejection of the
results of the March 19, 2016 rerun elections so far announced by INEC as
these do not in any way reflect the current political realities on ground
in Rivers State. These results, which indicate a mysterious landslide
victory for PDP, were allocated to the ruling party in the State following
unrelenting threats by Governor Nyesom Wike to the effect that anybody
coming to conduct any election that would not favour PDP should first
write their wills before coming to the State. The effect of these threats
and their practical demonstration as seen in how people were burnt,
beheaded and buried alive during the rerun elections can clearly be seen
in the shameful manner INEC is awarding victory to PDP,” Rivers APC said.
The party in the statement issued on Sunday in Port Harcourt said there
was nothing different between what happened on March 19, 2016 and during
the widely discredited elections of March 28 and April 11, 2015 cancelled
by the courts, which also ordered the rerun elections. It said this was
not a coincidence considering that the apparatus used for both elections
were basically the same. “From the Police leadership to most of the INEC
officials and INEC ad-hoc staff, the characters that organised the 2015
general elections were the same characters that organised the March 19,
2016 rerun elections and it will be foolhardy to expect any different
result. All these characters were set up by the former disgraced PDP
administration rejected by Nigerians during the 2015 polls” Rivers APC
said.
It berated Governor Wike for claiming that APC is not in a position to
win an election in the State, and for accusing Minister of
Transportation, Rt. Hon. Rotimi Amaechi, of sponsoring violence to remain
politically relevant. “Everyone knows that Wike is the one who has been
sponsoring violence in Rivers State and not Amaechi,” the party said,
adding: “If Amaechi did not employ violence as Governor of Rivers State
to stop Wike from succeeding him in 2015, is it now that he is far away
in Abuja as a Minister of the Federal Republic of Nigeria that he would
do so? Rather than the vain attempt to drag his name into the mud,
Amaechi should be commended for not encouraging APC members to retaliate
the wanton killing of its members by PDP, which would have turned Rivers
State into another Somalia.

If Wike feels that he is very popular let him allow free and fair election
devoid of his gang of killers and he will see how he is hated in Rivers
State. Time will tell the heroic role played by Amaechi in this
dispensation. As we watch the macabre dance in Rivers State we expect the
APC Government at the centre not to allow PDP to decimate our ranks any
further in view of the strategic roles we played in freeing Nigeria from
the inept PDP administration that would have completely grounded the
country if it was reelected.”