Anambra Poll: Replicate Your Successes in Rivers, Wike Urges INEC, Police

Ernest Chinwo in Port Harcourt

Rivers State Government has commended the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and security agencies for allowing the votes of the people count in the just concluded governorship election in Anambra State.

The government however urged INEC and security agencies to extend the success they recorded in Anambra State to Rivers State by allowing the votes of the people count.

The state Commissioner for Information and Communications, Mr. Emma Okah, in a statement issued yesterday in Port Harcourt, said the beauty of democracy is that the people’s will determines who leads them and if this was not the case in Anambra State, there would have been a resistance from the people and in return, crisis would have followed.

“Rivers State Government therefore calls on the INEC and security agencies to extend to Rivers State the same treatment of impartiality, professionalism, fairness and commitment to duty as we saw in Anambra State,” he said.
He recalled that elections in Rivers State wewre treated differently, with institutions that were supposed to work in the interest of the people turn around to scuttle the electoral process.

“While the people of Anambra State are lucky to have had a peaceful governorship election, the case of Rivers State is a sour tale where the umpire becomes deeply partisan by aiding rigging and printing multiple result sheets with same serial numbers while some security agents were involved in beating up INEC collation officers and snatching result sheets, all in a bid to favour a particular political party and their candidates even against the will of the people,” he lamented.

He stated that elections in Rivers State could also be peaceful like in Anambra State if the right things were done.

He called on INEC and the security agencies to “sustain this lofty and patriotic path of honour by demonstrating impartiality and fairness to all during critical elections, not only in Anambra State but also in Rivers and other States and FCT in Nigeria in order to avoid election-induced violence and crisis”.