APC, PDP’s battle of wits over River’s rerun

Preparatory to the conclusion of the suspended legislative rerun election in Rivers State, next Saturday, DEPUTY EDITOR, DAPO FALADE X-rays the heightened tension in the camps of the two main political parties in the state,  the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP),  and the All Progressives Congress (APC).

WITH the conclusion of the governorship election in Ondo State, last Saturday, focus will now shift once again to Rivers State. The conclusion of the rerun will be hold on Saturday, almost two years after its initial commencement.

A sore point in the unending battle between the gladiators of the PDP and the APC has been the persistent failure of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to conclude the legislative rerun election.

The exercise is meant to produce representatives for the state from its three senatorial districts for the National Assembly as well as some vacant seats in the state House of Assembly.

The election, first held in April, 2015 and later on the order of the court, on March 19, 2016 across the state, became inconclusive as it was suspended in eight local government areas, due to violence, hijacking of election materials and election officers.

While the national electoral body had, earlier in the year, announced its readiness to conduct the rerun in the affected eight local government areas on July 31, disaster struck as the INEC office at Bori in Khana Local Government Area was burnt by yet-to-be identified arsonists. INEC again failed to meet up with another promise that the exercise would be conducted before the end of last October, even as the issue remained a subject of contention and controversy, with the leaders and members of APC and PDP causing tension and panic, accusing each other as the brain behind the continuous failure of the state to have an effective and complete representation at both the National Assembly and the state legislature.

However, following the order handed down to INEC by the National Assembly to the effect that all pending legislative rerun elections across the country must be completed before the end of December, 2016, the electoral body appears prepared to ensure the conclusion of the rerun exercise in the state, on Saturday. Tension and apprehension have continued to increase in all nooks and crannies of the state. Put differently, belligerency and acrimony have become the order of the day in the state, with the provoking utterances coming from the major players in both parties.

Although about 28 political parties were registered to contest the rerun election, it is apparent that the exercise is a straight battle between PDP and APC, with INEC and the various security agencies in Rivers State being the umpires. Admittedly, the ‘war’ can aptly be said to be a four-corner battle between Rivers APC and PDP, on the one hand and among the two political parties, INEC and security agencies in the other hand.

With the tension reaching a boiling point, many observers, commentators and analysts alike have come to the conclusion that the political situation in the state is akin to an alarmist and propagandist warfare, as allegations of plan to rig the December 10 election, with connivance of INEC and security agencies and denials have come from the commission.

While Governor Nyesom Wike and the state PDP chairman, Mr Felix Obuah, lead the pack from the camp of the ruling party, Minister of Transportation and former Governor Rotimi Amaechi is the arrowhead of the APC camp, ably supported by some of his allies, including the state party chairman, Dr Davies Ikanya and a senatorial candidate in the election, Senator Magnus Abe.

These principal players, with their fanatical supporters and party loyalists, have upped the stake ahead the rerun exercise. A political commentator characterised the situation thus: “Today, the two arrowheads-Amaechi and Wike- are seen to be akin to then Iraq and Iran, and the grass roots parochially fight for them, crossing boundaries and cutting down barriers.”

There has been a deft move to mop up the remaining seats in the state legislature, the yet-to-be occupied seats in the House of Representatives and the vacant seats in the Rivers West, East and South-East senatorial districts.

Findings showed that the stake is much higher for APC, both at the state and the national level. One, Sunday Tribune gathered that the APC at the national level would want to use the remaining seat from Rivers to enhance its numerical superiority in the two chambers of the National Assembly. Secondly, Amaechi is said to be eyeing the ultimate prize in the election, both as a means to compensate Senator Abe who remains his only loyalist who had not been ‘settled’ and also consolidate his political base in the state.

While all the seats and its candidates remain important to the party, among the APC dramatis personae directly involved in the election, Senator Abe, a former chairman of the Senate Committee on Petroleum (Downstream), is understandably the star actor. Victory for Abe and, by extension, APC in the botched March 19 rerun election would have further secured the party’s hold on the state legislature and possibly make easier any efforts at impeaching Governor Wike.

On the other hand, the fortunes PDP had plummeted since its monumental loss in the 2015 elections. The party sees Rivers as well as other South-South states as its impregnable fortress. One of its last hopes in the attempts to revive its waning influence across the country. It is, therefore, not a surprise that the party will do everything humanly possible to claim Rivers State. Interestingly, INEC and security agencies in the state are in the eye of the storm. They have both been caught in the crossfire in the power game and are both at the receiving end in the accusation and counter-accusation claims by the parties. To many observers, the accusations against may hold water, given its serial postponement of rerun polls, as many are wont to say that the electoral body is an unholy alliance with APC by allegedly seeking to look for a time favourable for APC to conclude the election in its favour.

Within a spate of one week, Governor Wike variously said his police security details have been withdrawn, even as he claimed that he has audio-visual footages of where the state Commissioner of Police, Mr Francis Odesanya, was allegedly plotting with politicians of the APC extraction on the methods to be adopted for the planned rigging of the election. The governor went ahead to say that he would make the footages public through different media platforms to expose the alleged “extreme rigging desires of the INEC with the backing of the police and other security agencies.”

Wike also claimed that the 600 policemen working with the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS ) in the state  had already been distributed by the police commissioner to prominent APC leaders in the state on a local government basis for an alleged indiscriminate arrests of PDP supporters  few days to the election. He further said the SARS personnel distributed would also be used to unleash unprecedented violence on the people on election day, so that APC leaders would have time to substitute result sheets handed over to them by the INEC leadership.

However, the Rivers police commissioner, Odesanya, not only denied all the allegations but went further to say they were all ploy of distraction by the governor. The police chief also allayed all fears about any plan to rig the election, saying he was committed to ensuring the conduct of a free and fair election, devoid of violence and manipulations.

At another event, Wike accused INEC of handing over printed election result sheets to Amaechi and further alleged that the electoral body had already prepared a list of adhoc staff consisting only of APC ward chairmen and secretaries as assistant presiding officers (APOs) for the rerun exercise.

However, unruffled by the allegations, the state Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC), Mr Aniedi Ikoiwak, said the result sheets had not been printed, and challenged the governor to integrity test by asking him to produce the result sheets, if truly they had been printed as he claimed.

Not convinced of the explanation by the Rivers REC, Wike had insisted that the APC leadership is not campaigning for the rerun election because, according to him, it has received assurances from INEC and the security agencies that the election would be manipulated in favour of its candidates. Speaking at Emohua, on Tuesday, the governor said the alleged plan to rig would come to nothing.

And also, on Wednesday, Wike took his campaign against the alleged plan to rig the election to the international forum as he called on the international community to focus its attention on Rivers and stem possible outbreak of violence in the course of the exercise.

According to him, plans are in the offing by the police to start indiscriminate arrests of PDP supporters, few days to the day of the rerun elections. He added that, through the intelligence channel established by the state, he is in possession of the list of PDP leaders and supporters, including the state party chairman, Obuah, earmarked for arrest by the police.

“They have written the names of those they want to arrest. In Khana Local Government Area alone, they have earmarked 103 persons for arrest. You didn’t arrest them before now, but you want to arrest them at this point because election  is approaching,” he said.

The allegations and accusations have not been one-sided as one of the candidates in the election, Senator Abe has been vociferous in his attacks and condemnations of what he said are plans by Wike and PDP to scuttle the popular wish of the people of the state to choose their leaders and representatives through the electoral process. In one of such occasions, the former federal lawmaker accused the governor and his party of deliberately manipulating the public hearing by the House of Representatives on the politically-motivated violence and killings in Ogoniland.

Abe, who refused to appear before the panel set up by the House Committee on Army, last week, wrote a letter to the Speaker of the House of Representatives, saying a petition by the Civil Liberties Organisation (CLO) was part of Wike and PDP’s campaign of calumny against him, all aimed at whittling down his chances at the forthcoming poll.

“Not surprisingly, Mr Speaker, the petition is signed by Mr Livingstone Wechie, the arrowhead of Governor Wike’s campaign of calumny against the APC in Rivers State. He (Wechie) is the vice chairman of the Rivers PDP campaign publicity team. He was the pilot of the infamous Integrity Group that sponsored the petition against Amaechi in the Senate and he is also the plaintiff in the suit to stop the swearing-in of Victoria Nyeche, APC member-elect of the Rivers State House of Assembly.

“Mr Speaker, I have read through the said petition and it is clear that the petition sponsored through your office is nothing but an ill-disguised attempt by the PDP to manipulate federal agencies and influence public opinion in order to secure undue advantage for the PDP in the coming rerun election,” Abe said in the letter.

Also joining the fray, CLO, South-South zone, on Thursday, alleged a perceived merger between INEC, the police, DSS, the Army and a “certain political party with the sole aim of subverting the will of Rivers voters during the December 10, 2016 rerun election.” The group, in a statement by its zonal director, Styvn Obodoekwe, alleged that the plan was “to use the security agencies in concert with INEC, the principal engineer, to bully, intimidate and cage voters in Rivers and as well cook up results of the election.”

It challenged all security agencies to prove that the alleged plan to employ violence and force was not true, warning the parties said to be involved not to dare citizenship action “as the national leadership of the CLO and key civil society leaders across the country, already trooping into the state, will be on ground to monitor the elections, engage all players, particularly INEC and expose every anomaly to ensure that the will of Rivers people prevails.”

Indeed, the conclusion of the suspended legislative rerun election in the troubled Rivers is just some six days away and the general consensus is that political players, their supporters and other stakeholders in the state, including INEC and the security agencies, should emulate the Ondo experience and allow for the conduct of a free and fair election in an atmosphere devoid of strife and acrimony. But will the political leadership and the institutions empowered to conduct election allow the wish of the people to reign supreme in the course of the exercise?