Before December 10 Rerun Polls In Rivers

Barring any hitches, the long awaited rerun National Assembly and House of Assembly elections will hold in some local government areas and wards of Rivers State on Saturday, December 10, 2016.

According to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), the elections will hold in 1,840 units in eight local government areas of Andoni, Asari-Toru, Bonny, Eleme, Etche, Gokana, Khana and Oyigbo. The successful conduct of the rerun elections in these areas would ultimately conclude a process which started in April, 2015, when general elections were initially held across the country.

Following the nullification of elections of all the three Senatorial seats in Rivers State and several others in the House of Representatives and the State House of Assembly by an Appeal Court sitting in Abuja in December, 2015, a fresh window was created for INEC to conduct rerun elections on March 19, 2016 to fill the vacant seats in the State. But after announcing some of the results of the elections, it declared several others inconclusive including the results of all the three Senatorial seats and some in the House of Representatives and the State House of Assembly.

Since March, 2016, these seats have remained vacant, as INEC had cited insecurity as reason for its inability to conclude the rerun elections and had on several occasions postponed the elections, thereby denying Rivers State representation in the Natural Assembly, especially the Senate.

It, however, took the intervention of the Senate and the House of Representatives, which separately passed resolutions on the issue for INEC to have a re-think, and conclude the polls.

From every indication, the stage is now set for the elections to hold on Saturday, if the remarks of the INEC Resident Electoral Commissioner for Rivers State, Elder Aniedi Ikiowak is anything to go by. Ikiowak was quoted to have said that INEC had commenced the movement of non-sensitive electoral materials to the respective local government areas where the polls will hold and that the electoral umpire had commenced the training of adhoc staff for the exercise.

Similarly, the police hierarchy in Abuja was also reported to have deployed 20,000 men, three helicopters and 20 gun boats for the elections. These are indeed, encouraging signals to pull Rivers State out of the political doldrums after 18 months due largely to INEC’s less than impressive conduct.

INEC’s repeated postponement of the polls smacks of incompetence, unpreparedness and bias in the discharge of its constitutional responsibilities. Now, the onus is on INEC to prove that those assumptions are untrue and manifestly so by being truly independent and neutral; and show to the world that it is capable of conducting free, fair and credible elections in Rivers State.

The Rivers scenario may have questioned INEC’s ability to conduct credible elections in the 36 States since it has allowed the rerun polls in the state to linger for over 10 months. This state of affairs is indeed shameful and an affront on our nascent democracy. Thus, this is the time for INEC to rise above pettiness and redeem its battered image. Nothing short of free, fair and credible polls would calm frayed nerves in Rivers.

It is, therefore against this backdrop that The Tide urges INEC, all stakeholders, political parties, politicians, voters and security agencies to play by the rules, to ensure free, fair and credible rerun elections on Saturday. If the contestants truly love Rivers State as they claim, this is the time to reclaim the state from the throes of political instability and depravity and assist Governor Nyesom Wike to re-order the state to the path of prosperity, development, peace and security.

We also frown at the war drums literally being unleashed by the political gladiators in the state who have unfortunately been threatening fire and brimstone even in this time of peace. The political contestants ought to be civil in their actions and utterances and resist the temptation of overheating the polity because everything said and done, they will remain indigenes of Rivers State, and must not set the state ablaze due to their political ambitions. To borrow the words of former President Goodluck Jonathan, ‘nobody’s ambition is worth the blood of any Rivers man and woman.’ That is why it is incumbent on politicians to play by the rules and see politics as a game in which winners and losers must emerge. It must never be seen as a do or die affair.

To this end, we urge for peace and security before, during and after the rerun elections, as accusations and counter-accusations will lead us to nowhere. It is, therefore, expected that the December 10, 2016 polls would be the last, as Rivers people are sick and tired of postponements.