Rivers Polls: Coup Against Democracy -Observers

An Independent Observer group under the auspices of African Centre for Leadership Strategy and Development, which monitored last Saturday’s elections in the state has called for the cancellation of the election on the ground that the process was unacceptable by international standards.
Leader of the group, Humphrey Bekaren, who presented the position of the group on their assessment of the election during a press briefing with newsmen in Port Harcourt yesterday, said there were wide spread irregularities and violence in many areas of the state which resulted in killings.
According to the group, “ there was organised disruption of the process by hoodlums, who had free reign despite the presence of security personnel in many areas of the state, where voters were chased away and electoral materials hijacked.
The group also observed that political parties that were not on the original ballot papers printed by INEC had scores on the results sheet, while presiding officers deliberately used manual accreditation against the INEC directives that card readers must be used.
The group expressed disappointment that INEC Resident Electoral Commissioner in Rivers State, Gesila Khan disregarded the widely reported violence and  irregularities to begin the process of declaring results,  and called on all lovers of democracy to join in the calling for outright cancellation of the “phony election”.
The body also warned politicians over the imposition of their political will on the people. Rivers State was one of the flashpoints in Saturday’s election in the country.

Boye Salau