Rivers 2015 Election, My Position - Princewill

Prince Tonye Princewill is the governorship candidate of the Labour Party, LP, in Rivers State.

After a closed door meeting with all my local government representatives and an extended stakeholder engagement within my party, it is our official position that the senate and house of representative elections conducted on the 28th of March where largely neither free nor fair and were not in accordance with laid down electoral procedures. We will therefore be rejecting a large number of the national assembly results we participated in. The evidence to buttress the tribunal cases is now being collated and a team of 5 SANs, co-ordinated by the Rivers State party chairman, Prince Favour Reuben is being deployed to ensure we secure justice.

Our national assembly candidates trusted that INEC and the security agencies would protect them and provide for them a level playing field, but it was a surprise to see that not only did they not do so, their processes and equipment left them exposed, disenfranchised and ultimately short changed with results that clearly did not reflect the will of their people. As law abiding citizens, we have vowed to challenge, to the end, the injustices meted out to us through legal means and have no doubt that in the end, justice will prevail.

As many now know, our party supported the PDP candidate for President and so we have no doubt, his overwhelming victory in Rivers state is inevitable. We demonstrated our political maturity in working with PDP, other parties and indeed even APC faithful in voting for him in a peaceful and orderly fashion. Aside from being our son, we believe he has not only done well, he has earned all our support. We only pray that our collective efforts are enough to lead him on to a national victory. For us it was never about the party, it was always about the person.

I would like to add that it is particularly ironic to find ourselves in the same boat as the leadership of the APC in the Rivers state, complaining about the conduct of an election when the same actors in the APC have been the same executors of similar injustices in the past. "He without sin should cast the first stone." What goes around clearly comes around and I hope this will serve as a lesson for us all, including the PDP. In the end, power is simply transient and there are powers above powers. Justice comes in many forms.

Signed

Prince Tonye T.J.T Princewill