THE erstwhile minister of Transportation, Rotimi Amaechi, on Saturday, March 18, slammed the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and the police over the governorship and state Assembly elections in Rivers State.
Amaechi, a chieftain of the All Progressives Congress (APC), described the low turn-out out of voters for the exercise in the Ikwerre Local Government Area of the state as a result of “complete failure of governance.”
The former minister, who had also been a former Governor of Rivers State, speaking to newsmen after he cast his vote yesterday at Ward 8, Unit 14, Ubima community, accused detractors of being behind electoral violence in the state.
He explained that the situation led to voter apathy in the state as most people failed to show up for the polls for fear of being beaten.
“There is a total failure of governance in the country. Complete failure. People are being arrested and nobody has spoken.
“The Inspector-General of Police is doing nothing, nobody is doing anything. Now, there is voter apathy. I don’t know if it cuts across the country but there is complete voter apathy in Rivers State,” Amaechi fumed.
Though the election was peaceful in his community, Amaechi said that there were reports of the arrest of candidates of the APC in the polls.
Besides Amaechi, some politicians who spoke to newsmen after voting, decried low voter turn-out. The presidential flagbearers of the Labour Party, Peter Obi, and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Atiku Abubakar, attributed the low voter turn-out to the people’s low confidence in the electoral process.
Abubakar, after casting his vote, said, “INEC is already a discredited organisation. Sadly, there’s a low voter turn-out in today’s election, no thanks to INEC’s partisanship and incompetence that delivered a sham election on February 25. I hope the electoral body will seize this second chance to redeem its discredited reputation.”
Obi, who made similar remarks after casting his vote at his ward 019 in Amatutu village, Agulu, said, “The voter apathy is due to lack of trust in the electoral process.”
Harrison Edeh is a journalist with the International Centre for Investigative Reporting, always determined to drive advocacy for good governance through holding public officials and businesses accountable.