The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Rivers State has confirmed it’s decision to boycott the October 5 local government election in the state.
Rivers PDP chairman, Aaron Chukwuemeka, who spoke at the party’s secretariat in Port Harcourt said the party would not field any candidate as it was waiting for the court verdict on the election in the case instituted by the All Progressives Congress (APC).
Chukwuemeka urged members of the party to stay away from any activities connected with the election.
He said: “Few months ago there a suit instituted by the APC. We are not part of the suit but as a law-abiding party we heard that an order was issued by the court restraining INEC from releasing voters register to RISIEC.
“What election are we going to when voter register is not released to RISIEC and security agencies are not going to be part of the election.
“Based on that the party said we would not be part of it because we believe in the rule of law. All the major stakeholders of our party were in the meeting when we took the resolution. It was a collective decision of our party”.
But all the loyalists of Governor Siminialayi Fubara, and his candidates for the elections had since defected to the All Peoples Party (APP) to contest the poll.
The names of the candidates, who are mostly Fubara’s Caretaker Committee Chairmen in the 23 local government areas of the state, had been submitted to the Rivers State Independent Electoral Commission (RISIEC) by APP ahead of the poll.
Rivers APP Chairman, Sunny Wokekoro, was said to have handed over the flag of the party to Fubara’s local government chairmanship candidates vowing that his party would cripple the structures of the PDP and other parties in the state.
It was observed that Fubara’s loyalists and APP’s candidates had launched their electioneering campaigns in all the senatoria districts of the state.
