The Deputy Governor of Rivers State, Dr Ipalibo Harry-Banigo, the state Commissioner for power, Hon Damiete Herbert-Miller and the ex-officio member of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the state, Dr Emily Solomon have hailed the conduct of last Saturday’s local government election in Degema Local Government Area.
Dr. Harry-Banigo who performed her civic duty at unit 10 of ward 14 at Obuama thanked the Rivers State Independent Electoral Commission (RSIEC) for satisfactory delivery on its mandate as expected.
The Deputy Governor who cast her vote at 12:10pm expressed appreciation to the people of ward 14, Obuama, for their peaceful and orderly conduct throughout the exercise.
While also commending the peaceful conduct of the exercise in the area, Hon Damiete Herbert-Miller who spoke with The Tide at Degema, headquarters of the local government area lamented the logistics difficulty usually experienced by parts of the LGA, leading to delay in distribution and arrival of electoral materials.
According to Hon Herbert-Miller, 13 out of the 17 wards of the LGA are riverine with some of them very far away from the headquarters of the council from where electoral materials are usually distributed, adding that the situation poses a lot of challenges at every election period.
The commissioner, however, commended RSIEC for doing its best inspite of the difficulties and called on the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to intervene by splitting Ward 17, comprising Ogurama and Ke towns, into two independent electoral wards.
“Sometimes, it takes as much as five hours for electoral materials to get to some parts of the LGA and gun boats may be required to accompany them at times”, he said, adding that something needs to be done to address the situation in order to change the perennial narrative of late arrival of materials in the area.
He expressed the confidente that the PDP would win because “ Wike had done the campaign for them with his projects” and that the party was more on ground and widely known in the area than any other.
To the people of DELGA, he said, they should expect a new dawn as a new PDP administration would follow the footsteps of Governor Nyesom Wike in embarking on projects that will impact positively on the lives of the people.
Also speaking with The Tide after casting her ballot at unit one Ward 12, Degema Town, Dr Emily Solomon said election materials arrived the ward early and gave kudos to RSIEC, security operatives and the entire community for working together to achieve a violence-free and orderly conduct of the exercise in the area.
Asked if she was satisfied with the PDP giving only vice chairmanship slots to women in the 23 local government areas, Dr Solomon who is also a former Commissioner for Special Duties in the state commended Governor Nyesom Wike for the gesture, stressing that it had never been so good for women in the state.
“ It has opened the way for women, otherwise it would have been very difficult”, she said, adding that participation in governance in particular and politics in general in Nigeria had always been skewed against women and urged successive administrations to build on the foundation laid by Governor Wike and the PDP in Rivers State.
With five councilloship slots she said Degema Local Government Area has the highest member of female councillorship candidates in the state and thanked the Deputy Governor, Dr Ipalibo Harry-Banigo for working closely with the governor to bring about the achievement and advised women to always work cooperatively with their men counterparts to make more progress in the political sphere.

By: Opaka Dokubo