According to Governor Nyesom Wike of Rivers State, the tension brewing between the political parties in the state after the conclusion of the 2023 general elections is nothing abnormal.
Wike said this during a live media chat in Port Harcourt today, where he also stated that PDP was simply being on alert to avoid a recurrence of an incident in the aftermath of the 2015 elections.
His words: “There is nothing that is abnormal that you think that is going on in Port Harcourt. What PDP is doing is just to be vigilant.
“Vigilant in the sense that during the 2015 [post-election period] precisely, after the elections, after the nomination, we had problems that we never believed, and so we didn’t want a recurrence of that at the tribunal.”
The Governor added: “Everybody was shocked: ‘How would the police tender original results?’ And INEC had their own certified true copies. INEC tendered their own.
“To our greatest surprise, the court accepted the police’s original results. It was surprising to us, down to the Court of Appeal and we have seen this happen several times. Remember what happened in Imo State.”
“And we now said to INEC, ‘We will know whether what you’re giving to us is what you’re giving to these parties. Note all the parties and sign for it, so we’ll know that you’re giving exactly the same you have given to these people.’
“But we don’t want what happened last time to reoccur. You can’t have two Michaels at the same time. So, all these things you are hearing that the APC is shouting is because they know that game they played the last time, we will not allow it to happen again,” Wike said.
