No more elections in Rivers until peace returns — INEC

THE Independent National Electoral Commssion, INEC, has said that it will not return to Rivers until the state is conducive to conduct elections.

The INEC spoke as the heavy shootings that characterised weekend’s federal and some state legislative re-run elections in Rivers, yesterday, petered out and became a verbal warfare among stakeholders in the polls as the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, and All Progressives Congress, APC, traded blames over the issue.

We won’t return to Rivers until there is peace – INEC Mr Oluwole Osaze-Uzzi, INEC’s Director of Voter Education and Publicity, revealed that INEC had scheduled a meeting for tomorrow to review the situation in Rivers, adding: “I don’t want to pre-empt anything ahead of the Wednesday meeting.”

Citing widespread irregularities, the commission annulled the election in eight local government areas and also suspended collation of results after declaring few results. In an interview in Abuja with The Cable, yesterday, Osaze-Uzzi also said the commission would investigate the allegations levelled against it during the election.

He said the decision on when the remaining results of the election would announced would be taken at the meeting.

Military plotting to declare state of emergency — Wike Apart from attacking the APC, Governor Nyesom Wike accused the military of orchestrating violence in the elections as part of a plot to declare a state of emergency in the state.

The governor, who said no official of the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, has power to cancel results already declared by the electoral umpire, stated that the government had video evidence of the ignoble role of soldiers during the elections.

Wike, in a statement by his media aide, Mr Simeon Nwakaudu, said: “We have videos of the atrocities committed by the military across Rivers State. We shall release them at the appropriate time.

There is an attempt to cause violence to declare a state of emergency in Rivers State.” He said the APC was not prepared for the elections, noting that it concentrated on propaganda instead of relating with the people for the elections.

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