The national leadership of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has fingered the Minister of Transportation Rotimi Amaechi and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami in an alleged plot to void the March 9 Rivers State governorship election.
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) had declared Governor Nyesom Wike of the PDP winner of the election, after weeks of suspending collation of the results of the governorship election.
But at a media briefing in Abuja on Sunday, spokesman for the PDP, Kola Ologbondiyan, raised the alarm, alerting of alleged plots by Amaechi and Malami to trigger constitutional crisis in the state.
According to the PDP, the two Ministers have been allegedly mounting pressure on the Acting Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN), Justice Tanko Mohammed to void the election.
The main opposition party alleged the two Ministers are allegedly working on the CJN to reverse the February 12, 2019 final judgment of the Supreme Court upholding the exclusion of the governing All Progressives Congress (APC) from the Rivers election.
The trial court had earlier ruled the Rivers APC out of participating in the 2019 National Assembly, governorship and state assembly elections following the nullification of the party’s flawed primaries in the three categories of election.
By implication of the apex court’s ruling, the APC was barred from fielding candidates for the three categories of election in Rivers.
Based on the ruling of the apex court, INEC had excluded the Rivers APC from the ballots in the 2019 federal legislative, governorship and state assembly polls.
The PDP is worried by the prospects of Amaechi and Malami succeeding in having the entire elections in Rivers state voided by the Supreme Court and the possibility of the apex court reversing its earlier judgment and ordering the conduct of fresh elections in the state to accommodate the APC.
It said: “Nigerians can also recall how the APC, having been frustrated by its lawful exclusion, used compromised security agents to violently disrupt the smooth conduct of elections in Rivers State.
“In the course of the elections, the APC however adopted the governorship candidate of the African Action Congress (AAC), bankrolled his election and made compromised security agents and thugs available to him, with the view to using them to muscle votes.
“In spite of these conspiracies by the APC, the will of the people of Rivers state prevailed, as they braved the odds, resisted all machinations and voted overwhelmingly for the PDP and all its candidates.
“The spontaneous jubilation in Rivers State and across the country, in addition to the general outpouring of goodwill to Governor Wike and other candidates of the PDP on their victory, clearly demonstrates the PDP popularity and acceptance not only by the people of Rivers, but also by lovers of democracy all over world.
“However, not done with the desperation to cause confusion and crisis in Rivers state, the leader of the APC in the state; Minister of Transport, Rotimi Amaechi, has engaged in fresh conspiracies to subvert the will of the people as expressed at the polls.
“The PDP has information of how Rotimi Amaechi has been going around in Rivers State, giving assurances that he has the ears of the Supreme Court under the leadership of Acting CJN, Justice Tanko Mohammed, and that the Supreme Court will reverse its final judgment on APC primaries and create the way for fresh elections in Rivers State, in which the APC will be allowed to participate.
“Rotimi Amaechi goes about boasting that the apex court in the land, the Supreme Court, will reverse itself and order for fresh conduct of all the elections in Rivers State”.
The PDP described the alleged scheming by the two cabinet Ministers as completely reprehensible and unthinkable in a democratic process.
