Despite the veiled attempts by lawyers representing the candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, Chief Ezebubwo Nyesom Wike to frustrate the petition of Dr. Dakuku Peterside, candidate of the All Progressives Congress, APC, at the Governorship tribunal, it seems that much time which should have been channelled to the defense of the defendants has only been wasted through several frivolous motions which ended up in the trash bin of the courts.
After a violent and turbulent electioneering period which saw to the killing of about 97 people in Rivers state and destruction of properties, Wike was declared winner with over one million votes, which drew the irk of both local and foreign observers, US and EU Embassies. The worst culprit in this daylight robbery and rape on democracy was the Independent Electoral Commission, INEC, with an intolerable Resident Electoral Commissioner called Gezila Khan, whose only mission to Rivers state was to ‘deliver’ former President Jonathan and his party, PDP.
Mrs Khan who though is an employee of the Federal Government owes her allegiance to her new paymaster rather than uphold the constitution which she swore to.
INEC under Khan was not alone as the security agencies namely the Police, the Army, and DSS were part of the shameful shambolic elections.
Wike, had boasted that the elections were free and fair, and even if elections were conducted by Ban ki moon, he would yet win.
But the avalanche of evidence, revelations and expositions at the tribunal by the same agencies that colluded with Wike to massively rig the elections has not only confirmed the reports of the election observers and monitoring groups, but has damaged whatever defense his counsels would present .
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The Inspector General of the Police, Chief of Army Staff and Director General of Department of Security Services were suponaed to appear at the tribunal. Interestingly, but surprisingly, they approved the appearances of their men who were part of the election monitoring to testify. Not even the INEC officials were left out. They have told the story of what truly transpired, the violence, snatching of electoral materials and the shameful conduct of the officers of these agencies during the elections.
Most damming is the evidence of the Deputy Director, ICT in INEC who furnished the tribunal with the actual number of accredited voters from the approved Card Readers. She exposed the manipulation of the figures from 293, 000 to 1, 200, 000 million voters.
Not even the defense team could fault her evidence,:rather they were intimidated and overwhelmed by what they heard and saw.
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Suddenly, the one who paraded himself as the only miracle worker has been exposed. The employment of a dumb rigging machinery and the frittering away of hard currencies on security agencies and electoral officials are the only real winning strategies of a Wike-led PDP. Beyond these and the tacit support of the Federal Government, his only votes would come from only members of his party. Now that the peacock has been plucked, and it’s source of pride decimated, can the proud bird still display it’s strength and beauty? Definitely not.
With all the factors that helped him arrive at the Brick House now removed, does the controversial governor still have any electoral might? Your guess is aa good as mine!
