Rivers: Larger turnout, orderliness characterise elections

Posted by admin Elections 2011, NNP Elections 2011 Updates, Rivers, State News Wednesday, April 27th, 2011

THE gubernatorial and state House of Assembly elections in Rivers State were held peacefully, on Tuesday, even as the turnout was also encouraging.

Reports from the 23 local government areas of the state indicated that the elections were conducted in a free and fair manner, save for a few number of places, where reports of malpractices were noted.

While the parties involved in the elections accused each other of involvement in malpractices, manipulations and violence, security operatives ensured a peaceful atmosphere across the state during the election.

Meanwhile, the three main gubernatorial candidates in the race, being the state governor and the candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Rotimi Amaechi; candidate of the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), Abiye Sekibo and the All Progressive Grand Alliance (APGA) candidate, Celestine Omehia, have all reacted to the conduct.

While Amaechi and Sekibo did not find any fault with the process, Omehia, after his accreditation, called for the cancellation of the exercise, citing a number of infringement by the ruling party.

Alleging that his members were being intimidated, humiliated and being forced to vote for the PDP candidates, Omehia threatened that he would have no choice than to challenge the results of the election in court.

“Wherever that is taking place now is not election, it should be cancelled and a new date be fixed. The majority are being overpowered and intimidated to vote for PDP candidates. There is a lot of humiliation and violence perpetrated against APGA members,” Omehia said.

But Amaechi, who also voted in the same ward 8 with Omehia, noted that as the Chief Security Officer of the state was yet to hear any such report, challenging Omehia to come up with proves of his allegations.

“I am talking now not as a candidate, but as the Chief Security Officer of this state, have not heard of any violence in this election. The problem is that they planned for violence, but the security agencies are well prepared for the election and so they are unable to execute their plot and that is why you are hearing this now,” Amaechi said.

The candidate of the ACN, however, commended the accreditation and voting aspects of the exercise, but called for more transparency in the votes counting lap, noting that this is where more attention should be giving to block manipulations.wp_posts