Former Vice President and opposition leader, Atiku Abubakar, has launched a fierce condemnation of Saturday’s local government elections in Rivers State, labelling the exercise “political brigandry” and a “travesty to the very notion of elective democracy.”
In a short statement released on his social media account on Sunday, Atiku asserted that the poll, conducted by what he termed an “occupation government,” was an “awful absurdity” designed solely to grant the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) an “inordinate political advantage.”
The election results, announced by the state-run Rivers State Independent Electoral Commission (RSIEC), saw the APC win a landslide victory, claiming 20 of the 23 chairmanship seats, with the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) winning the remaining three.
Atiku called the attention of “well-meaning Nigerians, the international community, and all friends and partners of Nigeria to the dangerous curve that the President Bola Tinubu regime is taking our dear country.”
He urged all opposition parties in the state to outrightly “reject the local government election,” arguing that the government that conducted it was “extraneous to our laws, with absolutely no legitimacy to undertake such a crucial and sensitive assignment.”
Expressing his “unflinching solidarity with the good people of Rivers State,” Atiku said they were “victims of a power cabal which is bent on overturning their democratic rights at all cost.”
The state’s governor, Siminalayi Fubara, is a member of the PDP, but the influence of former governor and current federal minister Nyesom Wike, who is in the current cabinet of President Tinubu, continues to create a complex and volatile political environment.
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