I Don’t Trust Them, Wike Finally Exposes INEC, Police Over 2023 Elections
I Don’t Trust Them, Wike Finally Exposes INEC, Police Over 2023 Elections
Governor Nyesom Wike of Rivers State has backed the ongoing protest at the State headquarters of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) by members of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the state.
The PDP members in the state whose protest at the state INEC office located along Aba/Port Harcourt Expressway has entered a second week are demanding joint inspection of materials used for the 2023 general elections.
The protesters reportedly assaulted Tonye Cole, the governorship candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the state who was on his way to the INEC office to honour a scheduled appointment to obtain documents to enable him challenge the outcome of the governorship elections in the state.
Speaking in a media chat on Tuesday, Mr Wike justified the protest saying they are being extra vigilant because they know what their opponents, apparently referring to APC, are capable of doing.
The media chat was aired by Channels television and monitored by PREMIUM TIMES.
Mr Wike said the PDP also wants INEC to furnish it with the Certified True Copy of election results to file a response to petitions at the Election Petition Tribunal.
“We are being extra vigilant, all the plans, all the results they have printed to bring to (Election Petition) Tribunals, we have it in the flash,” Mr Wike said pointing a flash drive to the reporters.
He, however, declined disclosing the source of his information saying what matters is how relevant the information is.
“So when you’re saying what is happening in Port Harcourt? There’s nothing, we only need to be vigilant. We don’t trust INEC, we don’t also trust the police. So we are being extra careful. (We) don’t want what happened in 2015/2016 to happen to us again.”
Mr Wiks said there was nothing wrong with INEC as an institution but some people who are working in the commission are “terrible.”
“Look, I’ve been in politics and I know what people are capable of doing. It is not something that we will go and sleep and say no we have won the election.”
INEC had declared the PDP candidate, Siminialaye Fubara as the winner of the 18 March governorship election in the state but Mr Cole of the APC is challenging the result at the tribunal.
Some PDP lawyers who were preparing documents for filings at the tribunal were arrested by the police at a Hotel in the state.
Computers and other items belonging to the lawyers were seized by the police but were later released after they were examined.
Mr Wike, who said the arrest was intelligence driven, showed a flash drive to the reporters claiming that he has all the documents the APC printed to file petitions at the tribunal.
