Wike: Nigeria Will Be Doomed if this INEC Conducts 2019 Election

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Ernest Chinwo in Port Harcourt

Rivers State Governor, Nyesom Wike, has declared that Nigeria would be heading for disaster if the Professor Mahmood Yakubu-led Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) is allowed to conduct the 2019 general elections in the country.

He said the commission was working assiduously to create crisis in the country judging from its performance in the rerun elections it has handled in Rivers state and elsewhere in the country.

In an exclusive interview in Port Harcourt, Wike said the INEC as constituted has not shown any commitment to conducting any free and fair elections in the country.

He said the commission had shown that it wants to cause crisis in the state by setting up a committee to review the elections it had cancelled in the March 19 rerun elections in the state.

His words: “You see, I don’t understand why people like to cause crisis. You can see that INEC deliberately wants to cause crisis in Rivers State. Whether people want to use INEC to cause crisis to achieve what they have failed to achieve, I do not know. I ponder how a reasonable organisation can do what they are trying to do.

“On 19th March, 2016, around 1pm in the afternoon, INEC announced that it has cancelled eight local government areas results. Those, local governments are Andoni, Bonny, Gokana, Khana, Eleme, Tai, Asaritoru, and Etche Local Government areas. But those that were conclusive, they declared.

“Now after two months, INEC has set up a review committee to the cancellations that it had made and from the reports we got, we know where they are heading to and we cannot allow them. We want to stop INEC from causing crisis in the state. And I can tell you, the way this INEC is going, I don’t know what will happen to 2019 election in Nigeria.”

Further details later