Politics
I Stand On Side Of Truth, Justice -Yeeh
Being text of a press statement on the 2019 governorship election in Rivers State by former African Action Congress (AAC) Deputy Governorship candidate in the State, Chief Akpo Bomba Yeeh on Monday, March 25, 2019 in Port Harcourt.
Excerpts:
The March 9, 2019 governorship election in Rivers State has been lost and won: lost by my party, the African Action Congress (AAC) and its candidate, Engineer Biokpomabo Awara and undoubtedly and overwhelmingly won by the Governor of Rivers State and candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, His Excellency Nyesom Ezenwo Wike, CON, GSSRS, POS.
I was the Deputy Governorship candidate of the AAC in Rivers State up till today, 25th March 2019, when I decided to withdraw my candidature and resign from the party with immediate effect.
As the Deputy Governorship candidate, I ran the general elections with Engineer Awara in good faith. We both emerged from the primaries supervised by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).
However, shortly after our emergence, it dawned on me that the AAC was not serious about contesting the elections. The party did no other thing apart from submitting our names to INEC as candidates from the election.
The party did not field any candidate for the National and State Houses of Assembly seats. We printed no single campaign poster nor mounted any single campaign billboard in the State. Neither did we hold a single campaign rally or meeting throughout the campaign period. We never relayed any campaign broadcast or advert on radio, television or the print media. Nobody, I repeat: no voter, in Rivers State even knew what the logo or the AAC looked like.
However, 72 hours to the elections, we received the good news that the AAC had been adopted by the Hon. Rotimi Amaechi-led faction of the All Progressives Congress (APC) for the Governorship election, having been barred by the courts from fielding any candidates for the general elections in the State, except that of the office of the President.
In adopting the AAC, Rotimi Amaechi emphatically assured us that he was going to fund and do every other thing under the sun to give us victory at the polls.
He further disclosed to us that he had already assembled security personnel drawn from the Nigerian Army, the Police, Department of State Security (DSS) and Federal Special Anti-Robbery Squad (FSARS) to provide adequate security cover and enablement for members of the AAC and APC to effectively rig the governorship election and have us declared as winners come March 9th, 2019.
The adoption and promise to deliver the AAC, was however, not without conditions that conferred de facto Governor to the Minister of Transportation, Rotimi Amaechi:
- First, he must be the one to appoint ninety per cent of all political office holders, including commissioners, special advisers and chairmen and members of Government Boards, Agencies and Parastatals;
- Second, he must be the one to nominate and produce all the 23 Local Government Council Chairmen and other principal officers of the Councils;
- We, that is, Engineer Biokpomabo and my humble self must consult and take instructions from him on all financial, policy and fiscal matters, as well as the award and payment of contracts and other financial transactions upon our inauguration as Governor and Deputy Governor of the State;
In addition, I was forced to sign an undated letter of resignation as the Deputy Governor of Rivers State to pave way for Rotimi Amaechi to nominate another person of his choice as the Deputy Governor.
These were clearly slavish conditions for any rational politician worth his name to accept, but I pretended to play along because doing otherwise at that time would have been too dangerous a game for the safety of my life, given Rotimi Amaechi’s unconcealed desperation to remove Governor Nyesom Ezenwo Wike from office and install his stooge in the person of Engr. Awara against all odds.
And so the AAC went into the March 9th, 2019 general elections as an adopted political baby of the APC and with full confidence that the Minister of Transportation would use his federal might and connections with the army to rig it into victory.
But we are all witnesses to what happened on the day of the elections. Reports received in our situation room showed that despite intimidations from the army, the elections went on peacefully in virtually all the Local Government Areas of the State, except Abua/Odual where the army led by APC thugs prevented the distribution of election materials to the wards and units.
Furthermore, records received from the agents of the AAC also showed that collation had been concluded in 19 out of the 23 Local Government Areas of the State before INEC abruptly suspended the collation process following the unfortunate attack on its State Headquarters office by a contingent of the army on the 10th of March 2019.
The collated results further showed that contrary to the false claims of factions led by the APC/AAC alliance, the PDP overwhelmingly won all the elections in 18 out of the 19 Local Governments Areas, culminating in the declaration and return of the party in 26 State House of Assembly constituencies by the Constituency Returning Officers.
This fact was confirmed on the 13th of March, 2019, when INEC stated, as a matter of fact, that it had in its safe custody collated results for 17 Local Government Areas as well as the declaration and return of the PDP candidates for 21 State Constituencies.
The outcome of the elections on March 9th, 2019 clearly showed the preference and direction of the people of Rivers State. Even the blind can see, and the deaf can hear the echo, that Rivers people overwhelmingly voted to stick with Governor Nyesom Wike for the next four years to encourage him to continue with the good works he has been doing to reposition the State for greatness in the last three and half years.
As a budding politician, I have a responsibility to promote and protect democracy, good governance and the rule of law.
If we all agree that the desperation and failed attempt by Rotimi Amaechi to use the army to rig the Governorship election for his infantile AAC candidate was an affront to the democratic rights of Rivers people to freely elect their leaders; then, what can we say about the organised brutality, bloodshed and killings that he unleashed on the innocent persons in Ahoada West, Akuku-Toru, Asari-Toru, Degema, Emohua, Khana, Ikwerre, Okrika and Ogu/Bolo Local Government Areas of the State during the 2019 general elections?
In case you haven’t noticed, the purported claim to victory at the polls by the Rotimi Amaechi-led APC/AAC alliance vanished the very day and moment INEC confirmed safe custody of the collated results in 17 Local Government Areas and its readiness to resume and conclude the collation process in Rivers State as soon as practicable.
Regrettably, despite the national and international outrage against his desperate conduct and deplorable assault on our democratic rights, Rotimi Amaechi and his APC/AAC cohorts are still bent on subverting the manifest will of the people of Rivers State as expressed on the 9th of March, 2019 by planning to:
(i) again use security personnel to violently attack and attempt to frustrate and or prevent INEC from resuming the results collation process from the 2nd – 5th of April 2019 as already scheduled, and or
(ii) use security personnel to arrest, intimidate and force collation officers to change already collated results in favour of the AAC candidate.
As a practising Christian, I have come to the rational conclusion that the actions and desperate attempts by Rotimi Amechi and the APC/AAC alliance to rig the Governorship and State House of Assembly elections in Rivers are both morally and legally wrong, reprehensible and inimical to the collective interest of the people of Rivers State.
The Almighty will not forgive me if I continue to lend my support to the Rotimi Amaechi’s perfidy against the democratic rights of the people of Rivers State to freely elect their own leaders.
I cannot in all conscience continue to defend the brutality, violence, bloodshed and killings of innocent persons in Rivers State on account of one man’s lust for power and influence.
Power, they say belongs to God, and He alone gives to whosoever He pleases.
God has returned Nyesom Ezenwo Wike to power as Governor of Rivers State for the next four years and there is nothing we can do about it, other than to support him to continue to move our dear State forward.
Therefore, after due consultations with my immediate family, political friends and supporters, I, Chief Akpo Bomba Yeeh, the Deputy Governorship candidate of the AAC for the 2019 Governorship election hereby resign my membership of the AAC with immediate effect and announce my defection to the PDP to join hands with Governor Wike to move Rivers State forward.
May God bless our dear Rivers State.
Governor Douye Diri has set a target of at least one million votes for President Bola Tinubu in Bayelsa State in the 2027 presidential election, while charging the newly inaugurated All Progressives Congress (APC) State Campaign Council to prioritise reconciliation, party unity and collective electoral mobilisation.
Governor Diri gave the charge at the inauguration of the 20-member campaign council at the APC secretariat in Yenagoa, where he warned that internal divisions could undermine the party’s efforts to secure victory for President Tinubu and other candidates at the federal and state levels.
Governor Diri urged party members who were not appointed to the council to support its activities by taking the APC’s message to communities, wards and polling units across the state.
He specifically charged the campaign team to mobilise at least one million votes for President Tinubu, arguing that Bayelsa’s voting strength had increased and should be reflected in the 2027 election results.
“I give you a target that in Bayelsa, we must not bring less than one million votes for Mr President. You are going to campaign, and you have a lot to talk about the President. He has done so much for our people,” the governor said.
He listed the Lagos-Calabar Coastal Highway, the second phase of the Nembe-Brass Road, interventions in the power sector, federal appointments for Bayelsa indigenes and the establishment of the Ministry of Marine and Blue Economy among the achievements the campaign should present to voters.
The governor particularly praised President Tinubu for the coastal highway project, arguing that it reflected federal attention to the development needs of coastal communities.
“No president, alive or dead, has remembered the coastal people and coastal states to say let us do this signature project from Lagos to Calabar. The first president to think about it is Bola Tinubu, and those were the demands of the Ijaw people,” he said.
Governor Diri also expressed hope that a second term for President Tinubu would provide an opportunity to advance demands for fiscal federalism, greater resource control and state policing, which he described as longstanding aspirations of the Niger Delta.
He said the President had shown indications of addressing some of the demands of younger Nigerians and argued that re-election would allow the administration to consolidate its reforms.
The governor further cautioned campaigners against personal attacks and abusive exchanges with political opponents, insisting that the APC should focus its campaign on issues, policies and achievements.
The governor’s mobilisation directive comes amid criticism from the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), which has questioned his commitment to President Tinubu’s re-election campaign, alleging that APC campaign billboards erected across Yenagoa promote other party candidates without featuring the President.
The PDP, through its Publicity Secretary, Mr Ikaebimo Mark, said the billboards showed Governor Diri urging voters to support APC candidates for the National Assembly and State House of Assembly elections without identifying President Tinubu as the party’s presidential candidate.
Mr Mark described the omission as an indication that the governor was not fully aligned with the APC’s national leadership.
“When we said that the governor, Senator Douye Diri, is not supporting President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, we knew exactly what we were saying. Now Governor Douye Diri has erected APC campaign billboards across Bayelsa State without Tinubu’s picture. He is even afraid to associate himself with the photograph of the presidential candidate of his own party. How can this governor claim to be supporting President Tinubu?” he said.
The PDP, however, maintained that the governor’s public campaign posture raised questions about his commitment to the President’s re-election bid. Its allegation over the billboards now places the issue of the relationship between the state APC leadership and the party’s national campaign among the political questions likely to feature in Bayelsa’s preparations for 2027.
The PDP’s allegation has introduced a fresh political dimension to the APC’s preparations in Bayelsa, even as Governor Diri publicly called on party leaders and members to close ranks and mobilise support for all its candidates.
“Every person picked as a member of this campaign council was carefully scrutinised. I want to tell you that our campaign team is loaded. We parade the best candidates among all the parties in Bayelsa State, and there is no doubt about that,” he said.
He urged members to remain focused and united, warning that political opponents could exploit any divisions within the party.
“Our unity is very important because they would want to feast on our disunity. We will not give them that opportunity. Please, as you carry out this assignment, do not take your eyes off the target,” Hon. Ogoriba said.
SP Edafe explained that during the meeting, the organisers were briefed on the identified security threats and advised against embarking on an open-road procession.
Instead, the police reportedly recommended that the political activities be conducted at a designated venue where adequate security arrangements could be provided.
However, the Command alleged that the organisers disregarded the security advice and proceeded with the road procession.
Meanwhile, the Delta State Government has condemned the political violence that erupted in Asaba, the state capital, on Saturday, confirming that one person was killed while four others sustained serious injuries.
The government described the incident as unfortunate and unacceptable, warning political parties and their supporters against actions capable of threatening public peace, security and democratic participation in the state.
In a statement issued by the Commissioner for Works (Rural Roads) and Public Information, Mr Charles Aniagwu, the government reiterated its zero tolerance for political violence, intimidation and other forms of political misconduct.
Mr Aniagwu said the government had repeatedly cautioned political parties against engaging in activities capable of disrupting the peace, insisting that the incident could have been avoided if the organisers had followed security advice.
According to him, the police had advised the organisers to cancel the proposed street march and instead conduct their political campaign at a designated venue where adequate security arrangements could be provided.
He expressed concern that the advice was allegedly disregarded, resulting in a confrontation that claimed one life and left four other people seriously injured.
The government subsequently called on the police to conduct a thorough investigation into the circumstances surrounding the violence and ensure that anyone found culpable is brought to justice.
Mr Aniagwu further warned that the state government would not tolerate politically motivated attacks against any individual, regardless of political affiliation.
He maintained that Delta State remained safe for residents and visitors, stressing that the government would not allow the actions of individuals or groups to undermine the prevailing peace and security in the state.
The government also urged political parties, their leaders and supporters to conduct their political activities within the confines of the law and demonstrate respect for human life, public order and the rights of other citizens.
The latest development follows an attack on supporters of the Nigeria Democratic Congress (NDC) during a political procession in Asaba, which reportedly left several participants injured and campaign vehicles vandalised.
The government’s condemnation comes amid growing concerns over political violence and the safety of opposition supporters as political activities intensify ahead of the 2027 general elections.
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