…Accuse Fubara of perpetrating illegality
By: Felix Ikpotor
The All Progressives Congress, APC, in Rivers State led by Tony Okocha have vowed to stop the proposed local government elections slated for this Saturday.
This comes even as the Rivers State Independent Electoral Commission, RSIEC, have said that they are set to conduct the polls for the 23 councils come Saturday, October 5 , 2024.
Okocha, who is the Caretaker Committee Chairman of APC in Rivers State while addressing journalists in Port Harcourt alongside other members of his committee, said the elections and all the processes connected to it are fraught with illegality as it is conducted out of the stipulated time set by the Rivers State Local Government Law.
Okocha, held that the law stipulates ninety days towards the end of the life of any incumbent council for new elections to be conducted, adding that what is about to be done on Saturday is illegality and as such won’t be allowed to stand in the state.
The APC caretaker chairman also noted that there is a valid court judgement by Justice Peter Lifu of the Federal High Court Abuja, stopping the elections and as such the party would stand by the judgement and do everything legally possible to stop the elections.
Okocha, alleged that the state under Governor Siminalayi Fubara is drifting into a state of anarchy as laws and court judgements were flagrantly being disobeyed.
He regretted that despite the court judgement, the Rivers State Government and RSIEC was still going ahead with plans for the elections.
“On Monday, the judge addressed all the issues and said INEC should not release the voters’ register to RSIEC because of the fact that the processes are not duly and legally followed and we have said that overtime”.
“We would not watch a governor drift this state to lawlessness and that we are bonafide citizens of Rivers State and because we are bonafide citizens of Rivers State, we also have thesame rights and privileges anybody else can claim to have, and our right includes the fact that we are eligible to contest elections”.
“The governor of Rivers State has ruled and continued to rule this state with impunities and we would not stand akimbo and watch him drift this state to abysmal oblivion by the reason of trying to push across his personal idiosyncrasies.
He added: “The APC is ready to contest elections but not under this circumstances and the court has agreed with us that the processes were flawed and that elections under that kind of scenario would be a charade and that’s where we stand,” declaring further that, “We will oppose the governor’s planned impunity because it goes against the law.”
Giving other reasons for opposing the elections, Okocha clarified that although his party has the number to win any elections, but said they were not carried along in the processes leading to the elections, alleging that the governor was already an interested party in the polls and as such they can’t be part of it.
Okocha, appealed to the president, National Assembly to come to their aid.
“We are a party, APC is a party in government at the centre and we need to let our party, the president, members of the National Assembly know our plight.”
On his part, Publicity Secretary of the caretaker committee, Chibuike Ikenga urged the judiciary to take actions to take steps to ensure that their decisions are enforced, alleging that Rivers government and RSIEC has demonstrated that court decisions doesn’t matter to them.
“There is need for the judiciary to take positive steps to ensuring enforcement and compliance to their rules and judgements, by that, citizens of Nigeria particularly Rivers State as RSIEC and the government have signposted that whatever decisions taken at the court would not be obeyed and that nothing would happen and as we speak today, nothing is happening.
“We await to see when something will happen in obedience to court judgements, decisions and orders,” he stated.
Ikenga further implored the federal government as the leader of the three tier of government to intervene to ensure that rule of law is obeyed to guarantee peace and development in the country.
