Why Elections Didn't Hold In Bonny - Fmr Commissioner

Well-known among his peers as an astute politician, seasoned technocrat and formidable ally of the Minister of Transport, Rotimi Amaechi, whom he served with while the latter was Governor of Rivers State, George Fubara Tolofari, the Chairman of the State Caucus of the All Progressives Congress (APC) and leader of APC in his home LGA, Bonny, briefed journalists on the circumstances that led to the rescheduling of the elections in Bonny LGA. Kristina Reports here reproduces his statement at the press briefing. Enjoy:

It is impossible. Anybody that knows me will know that such a narrative is against my person. It's not true at all, I didn't do that when I was in office, when I held political positions and all that, it's now that I'm a senior stakeholder in the state? So, I wouldn't do a thing like that at all. It's unfortunate that I heard that the council chairman, Mr. Irimagha held a press conference where he accused me of using thugs to overrun the INEC office and they couldn't conduct the elections and all of that; that is a lie, a complete and total falsehood. 

On the contrary, he was the one that did that on that fateful Saturday morning. I was going to my ward to prepare for the elections because I'm from ward 12 and it's on the western axis across the Atlantic on the other side when my party members and the agents drew my attention to the fact that the result sheets they are seeing are not genuine; that they are like photocopied or something, the result sheets. So, I had to come down from the boat and I went back to the INEC secretariat. This was about 6:06am or that and when I asked after the EO, the EO was no where to be found for over two hours I was there. The EO was not there I was in the premises waiting for him eventually when he came they said he was coming out from the Chairman's lodge. 

So, my mission there was very simple: can you verify these result sheets? Are they real or are they fake? Can you put down anything on paper to guarantee us that what we have are the real result sheets and all of that. That wasn't forthcoming. Outside that, we had several meetings, my party and the PDP to try and resolve the issue and we just couldn't resolve. 

Now, I heard that the governor while making his own press release said that I disrupted the election with the military. That is not true at all and Wike knows me, Wike knows me inside out. Wike knows that I will never do a thing like that. He knows that. I think what the Chairman of council was trying to avoid is probably being removed from office by the councillors because Wike, while he was doing his campaigns, was going round told them that everybody must make sure they win their wards and their units; and he's council chairman. So, if he is not able to see that there was election in Bonny then the blame will definitely be on him. So, all this he's doing is trying to save his face. So, he should tell Wike the truth. Tell Wike what really transpired. 

We were just saying we need to verify. We need the EO to verify that these results sheets are genuine I'm not an INEC staff but when my party raises a red flag we need to look into it and I'm the leader. So, I cannot just wish that away. If I wish that away, okay. If they are, of course, fake results when we will now go out to the field and do everything worth doing. It is all nullity because some people will just sit down somewhere and impute figures. So, we just needed to know what the real issues were. 

 A similar thing like this happened in 2016 when we had one of the reruns this same party chairman, Mr. Irimagha was the one that raised that alarm that the materials that INEC brought were fake. This same party chairman in that case some materials have already gone out to some wards when he raised that alarm and said there will not be an election. We met and we all agreed that okay since we are not INEC, we cannot verify if this thing is real or not. Let them recall all the materials, let them recall all the materials and take it back to INEC to verify for us and that was exactly what we did. 

 So, we expected that the same thing would have happened in this instance, but they were insisting for them to begin, to continue to insist. Then, something was really amiss because even the corpers were saying when they gave them some of these things they were asking them why are these things in photocopy. The POs, some of them spoke to us and even an INEC ad hoc staff had to say that midnight preceding the election that the Chairman came to meet the EO and they were in the EO's office for several hours. 

Now, around past 8am, the Chairman made the first attempt to remove materials from the INEC office. We resisted him that was on the election day. Then he came back again with some cultists, gave them tags to try and remove the materials, we resisted them. Then, they came back again the last time that was about past 1pm or so. Time was running out. The Chairman of council came with their PDP cultists - I know them, I know them very well, they are Bonny people I know - they came with over 400 touts to try and cart away those materials and they started shooting and that was what provoked the military to respond and repel the attacks of their people. I was inside that secretariat with about eight of my party people. I didn't take thugs anywhere, they were all party people and they are Bonny people and the Chairman knows them. Why is he lying? Why is he lying? They know me, they know me in Bonny, they know me in the state, they know I'm a law abiding citizen, they know I'm a complete and total gentleman, they know that I will never get myself involved in such a thing. I was only defending my party. 

If the EO had come out to convince us to say okay, no these are genuine materials and all that, okay. The DPOs were there, the army people were there we all met together and all of that. I remember what the army man said, the army man said we are not concerned about all these, our own is just to keep the peace, you understand? If you people are alleging anything, resolve amongst yourself. We are here to give protection to everybody. That's what he said. The DPO, Bonny also made a statement. Do you understand? So, I'm shocked that the Chairman will come on air and malign me and lie against me and I'm very sure Wike, the Governor of the state today, knows that what the man has said about my person is not true. It's not true, he is just trying to save his face.