RIVERS RERUN: PDP, APC IN WAR OF WORDS OVER ALLEGED PLANS FOR VIOLENCE

Ahead of Saturday’s parliamentary rerun elections in Rivers State, the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP and the All Progressives Congress, APC, were yesterday, locked in a war of words over alleged plans for violence by one another. In the face of the clams and counterclaims, including claims that Governor Nyesom Wike had been targeted for assassination, the National Youth Service Corps, NYSC, pleaded with frightened corps members who earlier volunteered to supervise the elections not to back out. The Inspector General of Police, Ibrahim Idris, in a retort to Governor Nyesom Wike’s claims of an assassination plot against him, dismissed the allegation which he said was not worth responding to.

This came as the State’s Resident Electoral Commissioner, REC, Elder Aniedi Ikoiwak, said that allegations of a plot to rig the elections were unfounded, even as the Commission, last night, released details of the constituencies where the rerun elections would hold. The elections, the commission said in a statement, would hold in all three senatorial districts, eight federal constituencies, and 10 state constituencies. Meanwhile, a Federal High Court sitting in Port Harcourt, yesterday, ordered the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, to include Tai Local Government Area among the local government areas where the elections would hold.

The court’s decision was quickly welcomed by the PDP. The war of words between the two major political gladiators was triggered after the PDP accused the ruling APC in Abuja of working hand in glove with security agencies and INEC to rig the election with a plan to assassinate Governor Wike as part of the scheme. The APC, in a sharp response, accused Governor Wike of storing weapons to be used against the people on Election Day.