By Adedayo Akinwale in Abuja
As the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) resumes the collation of governorship results in Rivers State Tuesday, the vice-presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the just concluded general election, Mr. Peter Obi, has said that the will of the people must be allowed to prevail.
The former Anambra State governor, in a statement Monday said that Rivers State was so critical to the economic and political development of the country that a serious government should not contribute to its destabilisation because of the attendant far reaching implications to the fragile national economy.
According to him, “The needless stretch of Rivers people can only be compensated if their will is allowed to prevail in all elective positions in the state. INEC should see the collation of results in Rivers State as a huge opportunity for them to try cleaning up their dented image that arose from their questionable handling of the February 23 and March 9 presidential and gubernatorial polls respectively.”
Obi added that the militarisation of the the election in Rivers and other South-south states remained the sour side of the 2019 general election for which the image of the country suffered grossly.
He stressed: “The people of Rivers State should not have been subjected to the agony of waiting for more than 20 days before hearing their results, but it happened power found their way into the hands of some rascals who flagrantly abused it.
“Aside the fact that Rivers State is a traditional PDP state, the performance of its gubernatorial flag bearer Nyesom Wike in the last four years makes imperative that no party would be able to compete effectively in the state.”
