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Rerun Polls Favour PDP Candidates …As Rivers Voters Count Losses Under Amaechi Govt
Deputy Inspector General of Police, Sotonye Wakama (left), in a chat with Resident Electoral Commissioner, INEC, Rivers State, Aniedi-Ikoiwak, during an accord meeting with politicians and candidates for the 19th March rerun election on Wednesday in Port Harcourt.
As the Rivers electorate go to the polls tomorrow for the Appeal Court-ordered rerun elections into both the National and some state Assemblies public opinion weigh heavily in favour of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) candidates.
Exit polls conducted by The Tide shows that 89 per cent of civil servants do not want to have anything to do with any candidate of All Progresses Congress (APC) who worked under the administration of former Governor Rotimi Amaechi.
Nearly all 200 respondents polled said the candidates on the platform of the APC were with Amaechi when the government in preference for politics spent state resources on party activities at the expense of three months workers pay and about five months retirees benefits.
Such insensitivity they said, did not present the candidates as persons capable of representing the people’s interest.
The non-payment of workers affected trade and commerce , Rivers being a predominantly civil service state, as market women and other small enterprises owners groomed for lack of businesses.
Appolus Nna, a fisherman who supplies fish to traders at the dry fish market along Creek Road, said those final months of the Amaechi government were hell for him and his colleagues.
“Fish that we would normally sell for N10,000 was priced N3,000 by buyers who complained of lack of funds on account of poor business”.
Madam Oberenisiki Appolous, a trader explained that most of their customers bought their wares on credit promising to pay as soon as their salaries were paid. “But it dragged on from one to three months until the administration of Chief Nyesom Wike cleared the arrears and brought our business back on track”.
A retiree, Pa Abednego Berthwell said it would amount to madness for anyone to vote any enemy of his progress to govern him.
“A government that abandoned retirees, indeed senior citizens to die of hunger for more than five months does not have any moral justification to meet the same people for their votes” Berthwell said.
According to him, many retirees who couldn’t endure the five months starvation lost their lives. “will the children of such parents be foolish enough to still elect such sadists? he wondered.
Ironically, what APC failed to do was what the new Wike Administration did, and which endeared the PDP even more to the Rivers electorates.
Frank Udom, a commercial bus driver said the single fact that the new government broke the jinx of using rain as excuse and upgrade many hitherto impassable roads marks it out as a people-oriented government.
“Before the roads repair, nothing would make me to load passengers going to Borikiri and New Road areas because of the state of the road and long queues. Today, that road is my goldmine” Udom said.
Infact, go to the Isaac Boro Flyover area, opposite The Tide office, along 4 Ikwerre Road, even former Governor Amaechi would not believe that such transformation could occur with the years old big gully that nearly cut the road into two impassable parts.
“What of the UTC junction? At lest Amaechi used to use that part of Port Harcourt while he was governor. Can he not tell the difference,” Udoh wondered.
According to him, most of his colleagues plying other parts of the state also speak well of the government on road construction. Areas which they used to avoid as no-go areas are now goldmine commercial routes, Udoh further explained.
From Ogu/Bolo Local Government Areas, Mr Longinus Gad, a youth leader said he was wondering what the APC candidates would give Rivers people as reasons why they should be voted.
“I was proved right, because they had nothing, they did not bother to campaign. They instead, relied on the Transport Minister and former Governor Rotimi Amaechi to resort to threats of using soldiers to intimidate Rivers people, Mr Gad said.
“The Rivers Youth, Mr Gad said can no longer be exploited as thugs during elections and labeled cult boys thereafter and abandoned or killed”, Gad said and assured that the electorate would vote according to their conscience and based on facts on ground.
However, an APC ward officer, Mr Dere Ishmeal said his party’s candidates will win not just because of the former government achievements but because the party enjoys Federal support and protection of armed security to carry the day.
“APC too will win, after all PDP won when they were in power at the federal level, Dere opined.
Apart from that and very few respondents, virtually all are unanimous that the Court of Appeal judgement that annulled the valid election of the people’s elected representatives was a waste of time and resources.
This is because, according to them, Rivers people are prepared to defend their votes in favour of those who stood beside Governor Wike to pay workers salary arrears, repaired and constructed roads, renovated abandoned schools, built bridges and restored the judiciary’s pride of place, among many other achievements.
Our Correspondent
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