Rivers State has always been in the news out of the 36 states of the federation and each time the state is in the news, it would either be on issues of insecurity or political rivalry. It was, therefore, no surprise that the state was again in the news in the recently held 2019 General Elections.
The 2019 general elections in the state took place amidst violence and a number of persons lost their lives. In the governorship election in the state, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), which conducted the election and was in the process of collating results of the governorship election suspended the electoral process, saying that violence and insecurity were the reasons for their action.
The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), which is also the ruling party in the state, had Governor Nyesom Wike as its governorship candidate as other political parties also had their governorship candidates in the 2019 general elections which held across the country on February 23rd for Presidential and National Assembly elections and on March 9 for Governorship and House of Assembly elections. However, the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Rivers State had no governorship candidate because there was a court judgement that instructed the INEC not to accept any governorship candidate from the party. The judgement also instructed INEC not to accept any APC candidate for National Assembly or State House of Assembly elections in the state.
However, one of the factions of the party in the state was alleged to have supported the governorship candidate of African Action Congress (AAC), Biokpamabo Awara, and by this decision, members of that faction of the party were told to give their votes to the AAC governorship candidate in the state.
This probably heightened the anxiety in the state as people started talking about how a powerful APC leader in the state could use federal might to win the governorship election for the governorship candidate of the AAC.
The Rivers State governorship election was held under heavy security presence and that made people to say that the state was militarized throughout the period of the election which heightened the fear that the APC leadership in the state was going to manoeuvre the electoral process, using the military, to win the election.
The PDP in Rivers State reacted and condemned the militarization of the state. Stakeholders of the party believed that soldiers were used to arrest members of the Peoples Democratic Party and the party had appealed to journalists and foreign observers monitoring the election at the time to report the military invasion and harassment and arrest of members of the PDP in Rivers State.
Elders and leaders of thought in the state also criticized an alleged plot by the APC to instigate violence in the governorship election in Rivers State.
The elders and leaders of thought including Senator (Dr.) Benneth Birabi, Bapakaye I.J. Orabere, Ann-Kio Briggs, Chief OCJ Okocha among others, in a press statement said that they condemned the “reported plan by the leadership of the APC to destabilize the state and perpetuate violence during the governorship and state house of assembly elections as a ploy to be used to declare a state of emergency in the state and/or to ensure that the elections in Rivers State are inconclusive”.
They also said that they considered it “an obligation to draw the attention of the entire nation and the international community to this dubious plot designed to cause conflicts and possibly lead to a full military invasion of the state”.
To confirm the fears of the people of the state, the security agencies allegedly interfered in the electoral process as officers of the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) were alleged to have worked for the APC/AAC partnership in the governorship election in Rivers State. There were some reports that SARS officials stormed a collation centre in one of the local government areas of the state and tried to take over the electoral processes there.
The presence of soldiers and other security personnel on the streets of Port-Harcourt few days before the presidential and National Assembly elections and governorship and House of Assembly elections in Rivers State must have frightened residents of the city and the state at large as it happened it also affected voter turnout.
Speculations were rife at the time the INEC suspended the electoral processes in Rivers State that the APC would use federal might through the INEC to cancel the governorship election in the state and that INEC would call for fresh elections.
There were also those who speculated that the results of the governorship election in the state would not be announced until May 29, so that there would be a need for a Sole Administrator to govern the state.
In the midst of the speculations, the governorship candidate of the AAC, Biokpomabo Awara, told INEC to declare him as winner of the governorship election in Rivers State.
The AAC governorship candidate had said that he was leading in the results when the INEC announced the suspension of electoral processes in the state.
He asked that the State Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC), Obo Effanga, should be redeployed, saying that the REC was incompetent.
The AAC governorship candidate said that the INEC suspended the electoral processes in the state because the electoral commission was aware that he would win the governorship election and rejected the reasons given by the INEC for suspending the electoral processes in the state.
He said that the electoral body should accept results already declared at local government collation centres and had accused the State Resident Electoral Commissioner of being involved in election malpractice, alleging that suspected thugs working for the state governor were involved in carting away election materials in Obio/Akpor Local Government Area of the state.
The State Commissioner for Information and Communications, Barrister Emma Okah, who responded to the allegations by the AAC governorship candidate said that Rivers State was not a banana Republic where a godfather could rig anybody into power.
The National Leadership of the Peoples Democratic Party which reacted to the suspension of the electoral processes in Rivers State said that “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”.
In the end, the INEC had set up a panel to look into the reported cases of violence and insecurity in the governorship election in Rivers State and after report by the panel was submitted, the INEC took a decision to resume the collation of results of the Rivers State governorship election.
This must have brought a sigh of relief to the people of the state who were waiting with bated breath for the governorship election in the state to be concluded.
The fact that the governorship election was not concluded at the time worried not only the people of the state but also those who live, invest and do business in the state. Other groups of people who were also affected by the non-completion of the election were transporters in the state who complained that the development affected their business. So, when the INEC announced that they would resume collation of the results of the governorship election in Rivers State, everyone seemed to heave a sigh of relief.
When the INEC began the collation process in the presence of party agents and journalists in the state with security personnel providing security in and around the INEC office on Aba Road in Port-Harcourt, it soon became clear that Governor Nyesom Wike of the Peoples Democratic Party was winning by a large margin in all the local government areas in the state except in Oyigbo and Asari-Toru Local Government Areas, where the governorship candidate of the AAC, Biokpomabo Awara, got more votes than the PDP governorship candidate.
In the end, INEC’s collation officer for the governorship election, Prof. Teddy Adias, declared Governor Nyesom Wike, who is PDP governorship candidate as winner of the 2019 governorship election in Rivers State, having satisfied the requirements of the law and scored the highest number of votes in the election. Governor Wike polled 888,264 votes in the election to beat the candidate of the African Action Congress, Biokpomabo Awara, who polled 137,859 votes.
The successful completion of the collation process and announcement of Wike as winner came after a series of incidents, directed against the PDP in the effort to have the elections cancelled.
There were protests against the conduct of the governorship election in Rivers State by pro-AAC supporters and even as INEC resumed collation of the results of the governorship election, there were protests by some pro-AAC groups against the collation.
A group of civil society organizations and human rights groups and some youths of the state took their protest march to 6 Division, Nigerian Army, Port-Harcourt, where they apologized to soldiers of the Division for unguarded comments they claimed some politicians in the state made against them.
They praised the conduct of the soldiers in the elections, saying that there would have been more deaths and more violence in Rivers State if the Army had not been involved in the elections.
Some eminent persons in Rivers State also wrote an open letter to President Muhammadu Buhari, where they said that the President needed to intervene in the electoral situation in Rivers State.
They said in their letter that there was “no moral justification to continue with the suspended electoral process as the outcome will be prejudiced and contentious” and further said that there was “preponderance of evidences to suggest that INEC did not handle the governorship election diligently and (that) any further action by the Rivers State INEC as presently constituted in the state could overheat the polity and aggravate the security challenges in the state”.
A key supporter of the AAC party said that they would go to tribunal to contest the result of the governorship election in the state.
However, Governor Nyesom Wike, who was declared winner of the governorship election in Rivers State dedicated his victory to God and to those who lost their lives in the election.
The Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party in the state, Bro. Felix Obuah, congratulated Governor Nyesom Wike on his victory.
The PDP Chairman said that Wike’s victory was not just victory for him and the party but a victory for all lovers of true democracy in the state.
With the victory, there was wild celebration in different parts of the state as people took to the streets and celebrated while others formed themselves into groups and partied.
In all these, only one thing comes to mind which is that what is for you will come to you.
