The incumbent Governor of Rivers State, Chief/Barr Nyesom Ezebunwo Wike
and his Peoples Democratic Party appear to be in serious dilemma as most
of the Electoral Officers decline to appear before the Election Tribunal
to testify.
This is coming after the woeful appearance of the Electoral Officer in
charge of Obio/Akpor Local Government, Mr. Tebekaemi O. Ebikoro. Mr.
Ebikoro, apparently under a “deny all orientation” denied been aware
that Card Reader was meant to be used for the April 11 Governorship
Election in Rivers State, the evidence which forced INEC lawyer to apply
for an adjournment at the Tribunal.
An insider source in INEC revealed that following the Deputy Director
and Head of Election Planning and Monitoring (EPM) Department of INEC
Rivers State’s testimony before the Tribunal to the effect that the
Governorship Election in Rivers State was “a sham” and “Militant
Terrorism”, Barr Wike and Dame Gasila Khan have been very agitated and
unsettled.
Dame Khan, you will recall, is the Resident Electoral Commissioner in
Rivers State who has been accused of colluding with PDP to subvert and
compromise the electoral process in the state.
The source added that following the evidence of the Head of EPM, Barr.
Wike has been shopping for witnesses that would appear before the
Tribunal to “counter” that piece of evidence. Unfortunately, his efforts
so far have hit a brick wall. It was revealed that Barr. Wike was able
to secure the initial commitment from one Mr. Sekibo of the EPM
Department for N10m and conveyed him to Abuja last week.
However, Mr. Sekibo began to sing a new song as soon as the INEC’s and
Barr. WIke’s lawyers told him to claim that his immediate boss, the Head
of EPM Department in Rivers State, who had testified before the
Tribunal, did not go round to monitor the election and that he, and not
his Head of Department, wrote a monitors’ report. Mr. Sekibo insisted
that holding such a position on the issue was quite extreme and might
put him on a head-on collision with his superiors at the National
Headquarters, knowing fully well that his Head of Department actually
went round on the Election Day, wrote and submitted the said report to
INEC immediately after the Election. The information has it that Mr.
Sekibo’s refusal got Barr. Wike highly infuriated and he ordered that
Mr. Sekibo be released to return to Rivers State along with all other
Electoral Officers.
However, it seems that Barr. Wike has no other options as he has
reverted back to Mr. Sekibo, being the only one who has accepted the
offer for now. He has also re-invited some of the Electoral Officers
that he had rejected earlier, who are now demanding for N3m per person
insisting that their testimony is as useful as the one for which Ten
Million Naria is been paid. The source also reveals that some of the
Electoral Officers tipped for testimony on Monday 28th September 2015
include: Oyibo, Tai, Akuku-Toru, Degema, Bonny, Etche, Asari-Toru,
Ogba/Egbema/Ndoni and Gokana. A couple of Supervising Presiding Officers
have also been brought into Abuja and all including the Electoral
Officers and Mr. Sekibo are presently lodged in Awala Hotel, Zone 11
Abuja.
The source also added that the Lawyer to INEC, Mr. Ikpeazu is seriously
opposed to bringing in any other Electoral Officers to testify.
According to the source, the Lawyer’s argument is that once the
testimony of an Electoral Officer is discredited, as was the case with
Obio/Akpor Electoral Officer, that entire Local Government Area would be
down. He prefers that testimony should be at the lowest level, the
polling unit. Sink or swim, only a polling unit would be affected.
Curiously, it is for the same reason that those who believe that the
Electoral Officers should be called argue.
Some of the PDP lawyers who champion this view believe that with the
devastating testimonies of the Security Agencies that election was
marred by violence and two uncontroverted testimonies and several
Reports from INEC that there was no election in Rivers State, one needs
such higher authority to rebut those evidence. They argue that calling
100 polling unit officers in evidence, as the case may be, in a State
with over 4,400 polling units is not sufficient to rebut the impression
created by both the security and INEC witnesses who testified for the
APC. They said the APC would have been in the same dilemma but for the
overwhelming evidence of those Security personnel and the INEC officials
and Reports.
In another development, Electoral Officers were on Tuesday and Wednesday
this week; 22nd and 23rd of September, 2015, summoned to the INEC Office
in Rivers State to sign and back date some sets of documents created
several months after the elections had been concluded. Some of the
documents include Forms: EC25 series, which are receipt of materials
issued at different levels to the SPOs and POs; EC40, the statement of
account of how ballot papers were used; and other documents including
affidavits of loss of documents in which INEC Rivers State claims to
have lost most of the original documents used for the election.
A source revealed that a few of the Electoral Officers and Supervising
Presiding Officers refused to sign, warning that APC had earlier been
issued with certified true copy of the initial documents by INEC and
that creating a completely different set would further complicate the
already tensed situation in the Commission. However, the REC and the
Head of Operation in INEC Rivers State, Mr. Gboko, who regretted the
initial issuance of those documents to the APC without considering its
implication, contend that it is better to put in contrary documents and
allow the lawyers and the court to resolve the issues than allow the
initial documents issued to APC to stand without contradiction.
As serious as these issues appear, the parties seem unperturbed. When
calls were put across to representatives of the APC and the PDP, their
reactions were almost the same. An APC Agent simply said “we are waiting
for them at the Tribunal”, on the other hand the Publicity Secretary of
the PDP in Rivers State said “I’m not interested in that rubbish. We
will see how it goes in court on Monday”. Indeed, Rivers State people
and Nigerian await to see how the fireworks will go on Monday when the
Tribunal resumes.