By Uche Igwe
That
the results of the presidential election were allegedly manipulated in
Rivers State was not completely a surprise to many. What were surprising
was the clinical scale of the act and the stupendous audacity of its
perpetrators. I was there and saw things for myself. It happened as
though it was a well-planned, well-funded and rehearsed endeavour. I
wonder why other political parties like the All Progressives Congress
did not see them coming.
Now let me say that the President might
have won the majority of votes in many South-South states including
Rivers if the elections in these states were free and fair. I would have
been surprised if he did not. He was quite popular down there due to
the sentiments that he is “our brother.” Many of the pre-election
opinion polls that I saw said so too. However, everyone knowledgeable
about the politics of the state knows that he could not have got 1.4
million votes and for Muhammadu Buhari to have scored less than 20,000
votes. The votes were simply not there. The almost two million votes
were not there in 2011 and with the card readers, one would have
expected far less. Even if one assumes that only registered members of
the APC will vote for their presidential candidate, then the number of
votes should have been at least up to 400,000. Even those who allegedly
manipulated the election did not take that into consideration. Continue Reading HERE
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