It’s incontrovertibly that, never in the history of electioneering and politicking since the return of democracy in 1999 has federal might been so ruthlessly and brazenly applied to the fullest by a ruling party like the APC deployed as in the just concluded Rivers State re-run elections as the whole national party executive headed by chief John Odigie Oyegun along with Transportation Minister, Rotimi Amaechi and Kano State Governor, Abdullahi Ganduje and many more relocated to Port Harcourt, Rivers State to ensure the victory of their party over the more popular PDP, by all means fair and foul.
The APC helmsmen left no one in doubt as to their unseemly intentions as they were allegedly severally incited their supporters to violence, witness the infamous words of Chief Odigie Oyegun, “if they push you, push them back”. In fact with the massive deployment of heavily armed soldiers, fearsome and masked DSS operatives, the patently biased mobile and regular policemen, APC thugs and enforcers reputedly wearing fake military and para-military uniforms and the recruitment of APC ward secretaries and agents as ad hoc INEC staff, it was observable even to an infant that the APC controlled federal government was hell bent on rigging the elections like the scenario that allegedly played out in the recent Ondo and Edo elections.
Equally, privately and even publicly, Rotimi Amaechi and other top APC members boasted that the election was already concluded and that PDP would be buried in an unassailable, intimidating landslide that would serve as a lesson to those that felt they could dare the awesome federal might. Indeed, the misuse of the once sacrosanct Nigerian armed forces for narrow and myopic partisan ends stank to the high heavens. Indiscriminate arrests, harassment and bullying of PDP candidates, agents and supporters was the order of the day as the obviously biased law enforcement agents executed the APC script to the letter.
Astonishingly, even the chief security officer of the state, Governor Nyesom Wike was not left out of the APC horror contraption as his security detail was withdrawn, and that’s to show the culpability of the police headquarters in this barbaric plot, several petitions written by the governor on the summary threats to his life was ignored by the office of the inspector General of Police. However, the APC power mongers crucially underrated the tenacity, courage, resilience and staunchness of character and resolve of Governor Nyesom Wike, the PDP party apparatus, agents, supporters and the generality of the Rivers state people.
In fact, Governor Wike was already set to do the battle with the APC power usurpers at any venue of the latter’s choosing while the Rivers people, heirs to a proud martial heritage, were not ready to countenance the arrogance and impunity of outsiders dictating to them on who to vote or not to vote for. When the chips came down, the APC and their rigging machine which had boasted of capturing all the seats or majority of the contested seats were in for a sore disappointment as the electoral outcome was markedly different from their crooked calculations. Even though, they’ve allegedly managed to manipulate the Rivers South East senatorial seat in favor of the APC’s Senator Magnus Abe, it was a different ball game in east as a doughty Governor Wike beat the APC and their cohorts by publicly announcing the PDP winners; George Sekibo and Osinachukwu Ideozu, thus catching the electoral heist masters flat footed.
In the house of representative re-run, the PDP clinched virtually all the seats. While in the state of assembly elections, PDP equally triumphed across the state while the shamefaced defeat of the APC, Rotimi Amaechi, Abdullahi Ganduje, John Odigie- Oyegun, the countless soldiers, policemen, DSS and other partisan paramilitaries with their machine guns, AK47s, RPGs, tanks, helicopters and armored personnel carriers by the combined resolve and determination of defenseless , unarmed Rivers state men, women and children is the embodiment of the triumph of the people’s will, of right over might, of David conquering Goliath and the birth of a nascent political epoch in the national and even global scheme of things.
The indomitable Rivers people have in no unmistakable terms served notice to the so-called agents of federal power that they are not prepared to be subjects or slaves of feudal lords in far-away Abuja and that they are ready to take their destiny, or otherwise in their own hands politically, economically and otherwise. During the elections, an ebullient and fearless Wike coordinated the activities and operations of the PDP party machinery and was kept abreast of developments and occurrences on the field. Therefore, immediately after the elections with the lifting of the restriction on movement, the indefatigable governor, moved around strategic zones and locations to get an on the spot report of the shenanigans of APC and their collaborators. The vigilance of the Governor’s agents and the PDP rank and file paid off as several attempts at ballot box snatching, stuffing and thumb printing by APC agents and members were forestalled taller much to the visible chagrin and consternation of Rotimi Amaechi, Abdullahi Ganduje and John Odigie-Oyegun.
In fact, as the results came in, a dour and somber atmosphere prevailed in the APC Port Harcourt hangout as the gang of three with their cohorts felt betrayed by the scope and breath of the PDP victory in the State. It became dear to the Rotimi Amaechi led adventurers that they had been sold a dummy by the local APC machine as much of the huge financial resources allotted by the APC federal administration for the ‘Operation Capture Rivers State’ had ended up in private pockets since the local chieftains preferred to hoard the loot rather than deploy its for a fruitless and hopeless battle with the PDP. Given the patent unpopularity and notorious perception of the APC in Rivers State, it was clear except to a Rotimi Amaechi that nothing to save his party from defeat not even the deployment of the entire nation’s foreign exchange reserves. With Rotimi Amaechi and the APC’s severe humiliation at the hands of the PDP and Rivers State people it is clear that his Abuja feudal masters may be less amendable to his, Amaechi’s, erratic and mercurial behavioral disposition. To those in the presidents inner circle, the results of the Rivers re-run elections has shown markedly that Rotimi Amaechi is not as popular in his native region as he claims, thereby his utility and relevance is being greatly called to question.
– Kera writes from Abuja.
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