Signs of uncertainties about the coming Nigeria’s general elections just 12 months ahead have started to generate unease in the polity.
Coupled with the unresolved herdsmen terrorism may well be sitting on a time bomb as the ethno-religious divide in the fractured country deepens.
At the centre of the whole worsening discontent in Nigeria is President Muhammadu Buhari and his All Progressives Congress (APC), the ruling party that unrooted the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the 2015 polls.
With the next cycle of elections underway, Governor Nyesom Wike of Rivers State has raised an alarm that President Buhari’s party is allegedly having an unholy political intercourse with the electoral umpire to subvert the will of the electorate in the forthcoming elections.
According to him, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has concluded plans to print illegal governorship ballot papers for Rivers, Delta and Akwa Ibom states that will exclude certain newly registered political parties as a premise for the nullification of the elections of the three big oil states.
Governor Wike who was speaking while receiving a letter of nomination as “Independent Newspapers Political Icon of the Year 2017”, said intelligence report available to his state government indicates indiscriminate registration of new political parties by INEC for the purpose.
“All the the mass registration of new political parties is a deliberate plan by INEC to manipulate elections in three states- Rivers, Akwa Ibom and Delta- have been earmarked for the printing of ballot papers where some newly registered political parties will be excluded as a ground for the nullification of the elections by the tribunal.
“After the nullification by the tribunal as planned, EFCC will be used by the APC Federal Government to arrest the three governors so that they will not be around during the repeat elections,” he said.
Continuing, the governor alleged that their second game plan is to use the security agencies to unleash vicious violence on the day of the governorship elections in the three states to facilitate cancellation by INEC.
Noting that the entire struggle to hold the Presidential election ahead of other elections is one of the schemes at rigging the polls, Wike said the APC government has performed woefully.
”They have nothing on ground to campaign with except to use INEC and security agencies to rig. APC is not a political party in the true sense of the word. It is a congregation of people who did not want former President Goodluck Jonathan to continue in office for personal reasons.
“The fight against Jonathan was not in the interest of Nigeria. They have realised their mistakes, but they lack the courage to apologise because of their ego. If you move around, you will see that things are bad,” Governor Wike said.
Earlier, Ade Adigun, the Managing Director of Independent Newspapers, said they nominated the governor as the Political Icon of the Year 2017 because of his commitment to the development of true democracy.
He then lauded him for his contributions to the revival of PDP as a viable opposition in the country.