2019: Defend Your Votes, Guber Candidates Task Rivers

The Forum of Rivers State Governorship Candidates has called on Rivers people to defend their votes during the forthcoming general elections in the state.
This is as Rivers State Governor, Chief Nyesom Wike stated that the All Progressives Congress-led Federal Government was forcing the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to prevail on vice chancellors of universities to send APC members as ad-hoc staff for the purpose of rigging the polls.
The forum also condemned the threat to violence during the 2019 polls in Rivers State by leaders of the APC, and urged security agencies to call the APC Rivers State leadership to order.
The position of the forum was contained in a communique after its meeting in Port Harcourt, last Sunday.
The meeting was attended by several governorship candidates including Governor Nyesom Wike of the PDP.
The communique was read by the forum’s Chairman, Pastor Samuel Ihunwo.
The group called on INEC to conduct free, fair and credible polls in Rivers State in line with the extant laws.
They also called on security agencies not to allow themselves to be used by the APC-led Federal Government to manipulate the elections in Rivers State.
While decrying the planned manipulation of the polls in Rivers State by the authorities, the forum called for peaceful polls in the state.
The forum condemned the removal of the Chief Justice of Nigeria, Justice Walter Onnoghen by President Muhammadu Buhari, and called on the President to reverse the illegal decision.
In an address, Rivers State Governor, Chief Nyesom Wike expressed shock that the APC-led Federal Government was ready to act in extreme ways just to rig Rivers State elections, and assured that the Federal Government would fail.
He said: “The ruling party is manipulating pliant vice chancellors to submit the names of APC members as INEC ad-hoc staff and returning officers.
“Will the elections be credible when the list of electoral officials is manipulated at INEC headquarters in Abuja by the ruling party”.
On the crisis in Rivers State APC, the Rivers State governor said that the APC-led Federal Government was prepared to destroy the judiciary just to gain political advantage, explaining that the Rivers APC crisis was generated by the impunity of the APC leadership.
He stated that the security agencies and INEC were the purveyors of electoral violence because they work to illegally sabotage the electoral process.
The governor said while Rivers people will support violence free polls, they will not allow the manipulation of the process.
“The security agencies are under the obligation to ensure that the will of Rivers people don’t prevails.
“If INEC wants elections to be peaceful and credible, it rests on them. They should conduct polls in line with extant laws and not work for any political party”, he said.