The incumbent Governor of Rivers State, Chief\/Barr Nyesom Ezebunwo Wike
\nand his Peoples Democratic Party appear to be in serious dilemma as most
\nof the Electoral Officers decline to appear before the Election Tribunal
\nto testify.<\/p>\n
This is coming after the woeful appearance of the Electoral Officer in
\ncharge of Obio\/Akpor Local Government, Mr. Tebekaemi O. Ebikoro. Mr.
\nEbikoro, apparently under a “deny all orientation” denied been aware
\nthat Card Reader was meant to be used for the April 11 Governorship
\nElection in Rivers State, the evidence which forced INEC lawyer to apply
\nfor an adjournment at the Tribunal.<\/p>\n
An insider source in INEC revealed that following the Deputy Director
\nand Head of Election Planning and Monitoring (EPM) Department of INEC
\nRivers State’s testimony before the Tribunal to the effect that the
\nGovernorship Election in Rivers State was “a sham” and “Militant
\nTerrorism”, Barr Wike and Dame Gasila Khan have been very agitated and
\nunsettled.<\/p>\n
Dame Khan, you will recall, is the Resident Electoral Commissioner in
\nRivers State who has been accused of colluding with PDP to subvert and
\ncompromise the electoral process in the state.<\/p>\n
The source added that following the evidence of the Head of EPM, Barr.
\nWike has been shopping for witnesses that would appear before the
\nTribunal to “counter” that piece of evidence. Unfortunately, his efforts
\nso far have hit a brick wall. It was revealed that Barr. Wike was able
\nto secure the initial commitment from one Mr. Sekibo of the EPM
\nDepartment for N10m and conveyed him to Abuja last week.<\/p>\n
However, Mr. Sekibo began to sing a new song as soon as the INEC’s and
\nBarr. WIke’s lawyers told him to claim that his immediate boss, the Head
\nof EPM Department in Rivers State, who had testified before the
\nTribunal, did not go round to monitor the election and that he, and not
\nhis Head of Department, wrote a monitors’ report. Mr. Sekibo insisted
\nthat holding such a position on the issue was quite extreme and might
\nput him on a head-on collision with his superiors at the National
\nHeadquarters, knowing fully well that his Head of Department actually
\nwent round on the Election Day, wrote and submitted the said report to
\nINEC immediately after the Election. The information has it that Mr.
\nSekibo’s refusal got Barr. Wike highly infuriated and he ordered that
\nMr. Sekibo be released to return to Rivers State along with all other
\nElectoral Officers.<\/p>\n
However, it seems that Barr. Wike has no other options as he has
\nreverted back to Mr. Sekibo, being the only one who has accepted the
\noffer for now. He has also re-invited some of the Electoral Officers
\nthat he had rejected earlier, who are now demanding for N3m per person
\ninsisting that their testimony is as useful as the one for which Ten
\nMillion Naria is been paid. The source also reveals that some of the
\nElectoral Officers tipped for testimony on Monday 28th September 2015
\ninclude: Oyibo, Tai, Akuku-Toru, Degema, Bonny, Etche, Asari-Toru,
\nOgba\/Egbema\/Ndoni and Gokana. A couple of Supervising Presiding Officers
\nhave also been brought into Abuja and all including the Electoral
\nOfficers and Mr. Sekibo are presently lodged in Awala Hotel, Zone 11
\nAbuja.<\/p>\n
The source also added that the Lawyer to INEC, Mr. Ikpeazu is seriously
\nopposed to bringing in any other Electoral Officers to testify.
\nAccording to the source, the Lawyer’s argument is that once the
\ntestimony of an Electoral Officer is discredited, as was the case with
\nObio\/Akpor Electoral Officer, that entire Local Government Area would be
\ndown. He prefers that testimony should be at the lowest level, the
\npolling unit. Sink or swim, only a polling unit would be affected.
\nCuriously, it is for the same reason that those who believe that the
\nElectoral Officers should be called argue.<\/p>\n
Some of the PDP lawyers who champion this view believe that with the
\ndevastating testimonies of the Security Agencies that election was
\nmarred by violence and two uncontroverted testimonies and several
\nReports from INEC that there was no election in Rivers State, one needs
\nsuch higher authority to rebut those evidence. They argue that calling
\n100 polling unit officers in evidence, as the case may be, in a State
\nwith over 4,400 polling units is not sufficient to rebut the impression
\ncreated by both the security and INEC witnesses who testified for the
\nAPC. They said the APC would have been in the same dilemma but for the
\noverwhelming evidence of those Security personnel and the INEC officials
\nand Reports.<\/p>\n
In another development, Electoral Officers were on Tuesday and Wednesday
\nthis week; 22nd and 23rd of September, 2015, summoned to the INEC Office
\nin Rivers State to sign and back date some sets of documents created
\nseveral months after the elections had been concluded. Some of the
\ndocuments include Forms: EC25 series, which are receipt of materials
\nissued at different levels to the SPOs and POs; EC40, the statement of
\naccount of how ballot papers were used; and other documents including
\naffidavits of loss of documents in which INEC Rivers State claims to
\nhave lost most of the original documents used for the election.<\/p>\n
A source revealed that a few of the Electoral Officers and Supervising
\nPresiding Officers refused to sign, warning that APC had earlier been
\nissued with certified true copy of the initial documents by INEC and
\nthat creating a completely different set would further complicate the
\nalready tensed situation in the Commission. However, the REC and the
\nHead of Operation in INEC Rivers State, Mr. Gboko, who regretted the
\ninitial issuance of those documents to the APC without considering its
\nimplication, contend that it is better to put in contrary documents and
\nallow the lawyers and the court to resolve the issues than allow the
\ninitial documents issued to APC to stand without contradiction.<\/p>\n
As serious as these issues appear, the parties seem unperturbed. When
\ncalls were put across to representatives of the APC and the PDP, their
\nreactions were almost the same. An APC Agent simply said “we are waiting
\nfor them at the Tribunal”, on the other hand the Publicity Secretary of
\nthe PDP in Rivers State said “I’m not interested in that rubbish. We
\nwill see how it goes in court on Monday”. Indeed, Rivers State people
\nand Nigerian await to see how the fireworks will go on Monday when the
\nTribunal resumes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":42330,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-42329","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-exclusive"],"yoast_head":"\n