The police in Port Harcourt, the Rivers State capital, on Tuesday, averted a round of blood shedding, as supporters of the All Progressives Congress (APC) and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) clashed at a protest rally, held at the main gate of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) in the state.
The party supporters, numbering about 1,500 had gathered in front of the INEC office as early as 7:00 a.m., protesting against what they termed as the biased disposition of the electoral umpire against the two leading political parties in the state, ahead the forthcoming elections.
The PDP supporters had maintained that INEC was working for the APC while their APC counterparts insisted that the commission was planning to rig the general election in favour of PDP.
Violence started as PDP supporters suddenly charged at the APC supporters on the ever-busy Aba Road, dispossessing them of their placards.
The police yeoman’s job at ensuring that there was no bloodletting paid off as the APC supporters left the scene unhurt, but a journalist working with a Port Harcourt-based radio station, was not that lucky as he sustained injury from a stone said to have been thrown at him by one of the protesters.
While it could not be ascertained which of the two political parties first got to the venue of the protest, one of the PDP supporters was heard saying, “We have chased them away. Some of them (APC supporters) ran in to the bush. We took their placards away from them. Why would they venture into the place we are protesting?”
While addressing the Rivers State Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC), Dame Gesila Khan, in her office, Rivers PDP Publicity Secretary, Mr Samuel Nwanosike, accused INEC of recruiting card-carrying APC members in the state as its ad hoc staff.
Nwanosike said such development would not create an atmosphere for the conduct of a free and fair election and expressed dissatisfaction over the proposed use of card readers during the forthcoming elections, noting that the test-run carried out by the commission indicated that accreditation would be slow and delay the election.
However, the Rivers REC said the accusations of partiality leveled against her by both political parties were indications that she had been neutral in the performance of her duty.
She said the protest was a surprised to her, just as she denied the allegation that the electoral commission in the state received any package from the state government.
On the allegation that one of the aides of Governor Rotimi Amaechi has two brothers working with INEC, Khan said it had nothing to do with the commission’s determination to conduct a free and fair election.
Tribune
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