NRM's Jackrich rejects result of Rivers governorship election

Sobomabo Jackrich

Rivers NRM governorship candidate, Sobomabo Jackrich

By Okafor Ofiebor/Port Harcourt

Mr Sobomabo Jackrich, the candidate of the National Rescue Movement (NRM) in Rivers, has rejected the result of the March 18 governorship election in the state as declared by the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC.

Jackrich said this in a statement by Mr Chetam Nwala, the Spokesperson of the party in Rivers jointly signed by the party’s Chairman Ibiyekaribo Peters and Dr. Blessing Chinda, the Secretary on Thursday in Port Harcourt.

INEC had on Tuesday, March, 21, declared Mr Siminalayi Fubara of the Peoples Democratic Party(PDP) winner of the governorship election in Rivers with 302,614 votes.

But Jackrich said the election was marred by irregularities, vote buying, thuggery, intimidation of voters and alleged killing of voters in some parts of the state by desperate politicians.

He stated that attacking and killing of people during the election was a direct attack on democracy of the country.

He alleged that voters were flogged, brutally injured and molested in some parts of the states during the exercise.

He also alleged that a particular political party in the state instructed traditional rulers to use town criers to warn the residents not to come out for voting if they will not vote for a particular political party in the state.

According to him, the violence meted to voters and other political parties during the election was overwhelming and enough to cancel the election with alleged compromise by some adhoc staff of the Commission and some security agents.

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He also alleged that Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) machines that were distributed at some polling units and ballot boxes carted away.

He further alleged that some adhoc staff refused to upload results into the INEC portal, while some BVAS machines were without SIM cards, among others.

He said with all the violent acts that took place during the election, it falls short of the minimum acceptable standards of a democratic election anywhere in the world and the NRM therefore rejected the outcome.

“We have also lost faith in the electoral empire to deliver free, fair and credible elections where the popular will of the people will decide the faith of our state, we therefore declare a vote of no confidence in the Commission.

“We call for an Independent panel of inquiry to investigate the Independent National Electoral Commission and all the officers to weed out bad eggs in the Commission as a deliberate effort to sanitize our democracy,”he said.

He said that the Electoral body can be trust worthy if the bad eggs are weeded out of the system.

He also called on International bodies, Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) and all lovers of democracy to condemn the act of impunity and sue for the right thing to be done.

“We also called on the security agencies to investigate the violence that marred the election and bring the perpetrators to book,”he said.

He said that the party will remain resolute in the quest to rescue Rivers State within the ambit of the law.

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