Lasun Alagbe
Governors’ hold on state electoral commissions has played out dramatically in Rivers State with the incumbent, Siminalayi Fubara, far flooring his powerful estranged godfather, Nyeson Wike.
Fubara could not have his way with Nigeria’s two biggest parties – the All Progressives Congress and Peoples Democratic Party – but the small one he is believed to have pitched his tent with, the Action People’s Party , won 22 out of the 23 Local Government Councils in Saturday’s volatile election.
There were threats and violence but, somehow, the ant defeated the behemoths even if in legally controversial circumstances.
For many years, state governments have been spinning magic with local government elections: their parties always win all.
Even in Benue State, the ruling APC has just cleared all, as has happened elsewhere.
The Wike’s camp, as well as those of other former governors, must therefore have been feeling the two-edged sharpness of the culture they established and lavishly benefited from, making state electoral commission a factory for manufacturing winners for their parties.
Meanwhile, Fubara has sworn in the newly elected council chairmen of the 23 local government areas.
The exercise was held on Sunday at the Executive Council Chamber of the Government House in Port Harcourt, the state capital, hours after the chairmen were issued certificates of return by the Chairman of the Rivers State Independent Electoral Commission, Adolphus Enebeli.
After an exercise held amid heightened tension on Saturday, the Action Peoples Party won 22 out of 23 chairmanship positions, while the Action Alliance candidate won one seat.
