How Safe Is The Rivers Rerun With PDP, APC at each others’ throats

Ahead of Saturday’s parliamentary rerun elections in Rivers State, the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, and the All Progressives Congress, APC, were, yesterday, locked in a war of words over alleged plans to unleash violence. 

In the face of the claims and counter-claims, including allegation that Governor Nyesom Wike had been targeted for assassination, the National Youth Service Corps, NYSC, pleaded with frightened Corps members, who earlier volunteered to supervise the elections, not to back out.

The Inspector General of Police, Ibrahim Idris in a retort to Governor Nyesom Wike’s claims of an assassination plot against him, dismissed the allegation which he said was not worth responding to. This came as State Resident Electoral Commissioner, REC, Elder Aniedi Ikoiwak, told Vanguard that allegations of a plot to rig the elections were unfounded, even as the Commission, last night, released details of the constituencies where the rerun elections would hold. 

The elections, the commission said in a statement, would hold in all three senatorial districts, eight federal constituencies, and 10 state constituencies. Meanwhile, a Federal High Court sitting in Port-Harcourt, yesterday, ordered the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, to include Tai Local Government Area among the local government areas where the elections would hold. The court decision was quickly welcomed by the PDP. Meanwhile, confusion was last night trailing the judgment of a Federal High Court presided over by Justice Muhammad Liman on the status of Tai local government area in the coming rerun elections in the state.

vanguard