State polls: UK expresses concern over military interference in Rivers

THE United Kingdom (UK) has expressed concern over reports of military interference in the gubernatorial and State House of Assembly elections in Rivers State held on Saturday.

The UK High Commission said in a tweet on its verified Twitter handle, @UKinNigeria, on Sunday afternoon that reports including from its own observers spoke of military interference in the election in the State.

The High Commission said it was monitoring the situation very closely and demanded that staff of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) is allowed to do their job without intimidation.

“Extremely concerned by reports, including from @UKinnigeria observers, of military interference in the election process in Rivers State. Monitoring the situation closely @inecng staff must be allowed to do their job in safety, without intimidation,” the UK High Commission tweeted.

In a similar development, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), has condemned what it said was the treasonable confiscation of the Rivers state governorship election results by soldiers and demanded the immediate release to avert a serious crisis in the State.

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In a statement issued in Abuja on Sunday by Kola Ologbondiyan, National Publicity Secretary and Director, Media & Publicity PDP Presidential Campaign Organisation, the main opposition party maintained that it completely reviled “this subversive act by soldiers, who seized and diverted the results to an army barrack in Port Harcourt and calls on all lovers of democracy, to unite against this brazen attack on our democracy by the Buhari Presidency and All Progressives Congress (APC). Such barefaced assault is only akin to a coup d’état and should not be allowed to stand.”

It added: “Nigerians watched in bewilderment as soldiers, in the company of APC thugs invaded polling units in Rivers State, unleashed violence on voters, disrupted polling processes and hauled away electoral materials, just because the APC is not in the ballot, following its self-inflicted exclusion from the election.

“The use of soldiers to ambush the electoral process and confiscate results is an extreme scheme by the APC and the Buhari Presidency to enmesh the Rivers State governorship election in controversy,  seeing that there is no way they can take away victory from the PDP.

“Soldiers, allegedly under the directive of the Director-General of the Buhari Campaign Organisation and Minister of Transportation, Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi, invaded INEC offices, waylaid INEC officials and forcefully took away collated results to the army barracks, where APC agents have been stationed to alter figures and destroy evidence of PDP’s victory.

“We want Nigerians to note that the APC is frustrated that it is not in the ballot in the Rivers State election and for that, it has resorted to violence, killings and heavy militarisation of the area, in the attempt to disrupt the electoral process, seeing that the PDP had already won.

“What the APC and its compromised soldiers fail to note is that the PDP already has valid documents of all the results as delivered from all the polling units where elections held across the State and that the figures are with all the stakeholders.

“Therefore, deploying soldiers to confiscate the results will not change the victory already recorded by our party in Rivers State.”