From Tony John, Port Harcourt
Rivers State Commissioner of Information and Communication, Dr. Austin Tam-George, has called on the Federal Government to disband the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) under the leadership of Prof. Mahmood Yakubu.
Tam-George, in a statement issued shortly after the cancellation of the rerun election scheduled for July 30, said the state government and the people of the state were shocked by the collusion between INEC and the All Progressives Congress (APC) to prevent the election from taking place.
He said the incompetence of INEC and the open partisanship of the electoral body was denying the state full representation in the National Assembly.
“It is completely unacceptable that Rivers State would continue to be denied full representation in the National Assembly due to the incompetence and malpractices orchestrated by INEC.
“We call on the presidency and the National Assembly to act urgently in the national interest to disband INEC as presently constituted, for its incompetence and open partisanship.
“We call on the international community to initiate and maintain diplomatic pressure on the Federal Government, which continues to frustrate the independence of INEC, and the evolution of democratic diversity in Nigeria”.
“The people of Rivers State will continue to resist and defeat the medieval authoritarianism of the APC,” Tam-George stated.
However, APC has accused PDP of causing the postponement of the rerun elections in the State.
Publicity Secretary of APC in the State, Chris Finebone, stated this in a statement issued yesterday, in Port Harcourt.
Finebone said though APC received the news with mixed feelings, the reason given by INEC was proper.
“Our instinctive response is that of huge disappointment considering that it will further deny the people’s parliamentary representations at both the national and state levels, while the pressure on our candidates to sustain their campaigns continues apace.
“However, considering the reasons adduced by the Independent National Electoral Commission [INEC] for the postponement, the APC believes that had members of the Peoples Democratic Party [PDP] abandoned their antics, the postponement of the rerun elections would have been unnecessary”, Finebone stated.