Rivers governorship poll, a sham— INEC official

A bombshell was dropped on Friday at the ongoing Rivers State Election Petition Tribunal sitting in Abuja, when an official of the Independent National Electoral Commission, (INEC) described the state’s governorship poll of April 11 as a ‘sham, warfare, militant terrorism and a mockery of democracy’.

Charles Okoye, who works in the Department of Elections and Party Monitoring at Rivers State INEC, explained that the governorship election, which he monitored, was characterized by many observable electoral malpractices such as large-scale violence, disruption of polls in many places and doctoring of results among others.

Read also: Rivers, A’Ibom polls: EU rants, INEC adamant

His words: “The election we observed was warfare. It is also militant terrorism and a sham. It was a kangaroo election and a mockery of democracy.

“The election was characterised by large-scale violence and disruption of polls in many places. There were snatching of materials, nonstop shooting, allocation of figures and all kinds of impunity.

“All these happened on April 11. What happened on that day could not have passed as an election and my observations are in that report that I signed with members of my monitoring team.

“By virtue of my position at INEC, I am eminently qualified to speak on the things that happened during the election. My duty, among other things, is monitoring of election with a view to assisting the Commission improve the electoral process.

“Over 80 observer groups reported to me, and I briefed them concerning the elections and debriefed them at the end of the elections.

“I also set up monitoring teams that went to various parts of the state on monitoring. They reported to me at the end of the day, and I was the person in the commission who dealt with all the political parties before, during and after the elections”.

He equally argued that the recruitment of INEC ad-hoc staff was not properly conducted.

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