Rivers Youths Reject Guber Poll Results, Protest Death of 15

Blessing Ibunge in Port Harcourt

Hundreds of Rivers State youths yesterday protested at the state office of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) in Port Harcourt, expressing their disapproval to the announcement of the results for the March 18, 2023, governorship and House of Assembly elections in Rivers State, as declared by the commission.

The youths under the aegis of National Youth Council of Ogoni People (NYCOP) in collaboration with the Rivers State Ethnic Youth Leaders Council demanded that the announced results be cancelled over alleged irregularities, violence, killings, hijack of ballot boxes that marred the election.

The protesters with their different placards alleged that 15 deaths were recorded in Ogoni during the last governorship and House of Assembly elections, stressing that the outcome of the election was a rape on the Nigeria’s democracy.

Some of the inscriptions on the placards included: ‘INEC, stop killing our democracy’; ‘Rivers INEC, an extension of Governor Wike’s office’; ‘Our democracy is not safe with INEC’; ‘WE rejects results uploaded after declaration of results by INEC’; “Our votes must count’.

The President of NYCOP,  Barinuazor Emmanuel, who spoke at the venue of the protest, accused INEC of conniving with some political parties to subvert the will of the people.

Emmanuel alleged that in some places where voting did not take place, INEC still allotted results to some political parties.

He said: “We are here today as peaceful people. What happened to us on March 18, 2023, was a rape on our democracy. INEC and some political parties denied us our will to vote.

“We voted in some places, but our votes did not count. Where we did not vote, they (INEC and some political parties), also manufactured votes for them.

“Our grandmothers, traders, youths and others suffered to register for Permanent Voter’s Card (PVC). We suffered to also collect our PVCs. We paid transport from our respective homes to go to our polling units to vote. At the end, what we saw was death.

“Over 15 youths died in this election (governorship and House of Assembly elections).  But the media did not report the casualties. We saw how political thugs connived with INEC to hijack voting materials, denying us our votes.  Yet, we saw votes that were declared for some people.

“We are here today to tell the world that we the Rivers youths reject any result that was announced here given to some politicians. We want to say that such results were not our will.  We are also here today to tell INEC that it’s a shame to our democracy.”

The youth group also called on the Economic and Finance Crimes Commission (EFCC) and the Department of State Security (DSS) to investigate the report of Bi-Modal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) in the hands of some politicians in the state.

Emmanuel said: “Secondly, we observed that since three days ago, if you go to our local government areas, they are busy uploading results on BVAS. Where are they getting those results from? Who gave them (politicians) those BVAS?

“We are calling on EFCC and DSS (but we won’t mention police because they connived with them to rape our democracy), to investigate those uploading results and arrest them.”

Also, Prince Morris, candidate for the Social Democratic Party (SDP), Khana constituency I, who also joined the protest, said INEC should declare him winner of the election, alleging that staff of the commission thwarted the peoples will in favour of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).

While responding, the Head of Voter Education and Publicity Department of INEC in Rivers State, Mr. Mark Usulor, urged the protesters to sheathe their swords, assuring them that their complaints would be channelled to the appropriate authority.