By Jimitota Onoyume

PORT HAR-COURT— Governor Nyesom  Wike of Rivers State  has called on the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC,  to ensure it sticks  to card readers for the 2019 general election,  saying that where it fails in any ward, elections for that area should be postponed for the card reader to be fixed.

Nyesom Wike

The governor gave the advice, yesterday, while receiving a large number of decampees from the All Progressives Congress, APC,  at a rally of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP,  in Port Harcourt.

He said that the electoral body should not be encouraged to conduct elections without the card reader, stressing that any election without the device would be rigged by the electoral body.

Wike, who assured the decampees of equal treatment with old members of the party, also called on the Federal Government to invest  recovered stolen funds by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission,  EFCC, on INEC to enable the body deliver credible elections in 2019.

“If they want Nigeria to have free and fair elections, card readers should be used and if the card reader fails, they should postpone elections to the next day in that area. Let it be card reader all through. They should invest all the recovered money by EFCC to conduct credible elections. INEC can make card readers fail and use Police to rig the elections,” he said.

The governor maintained that the state was entirely  for the PDP, stressing that no amount of  propaganda  from the APC would change the minds of Rivers people against his party.

He said that two years since the APC government came on board at the centre, it had not been able to keep  its campaign promise to complete the East-West Road and Port Harcourt International Airport within three months of being sworn in.

Former acting National Chairman of the PDP, Prince Uche Secondus, who also spoke at the event, said that the APC had allegedly collapsed in the state and at the national level with the executive arm fighting the legislature at the national level.

He said that the APC literally came to the state to fight war during the last December 10 rerun elections, stressing that the party was humbled by the firm resolve of the people to vote for the PDP.

Secondus also called on the EFCC, to declare the owner of the $43 million recovered in Ikoyi, Lagos State, saying he believed it belonged to Rivers State.

“I believe that money that was found in Ikoyi belong to Rivers State. Ibrahim Magu should announce the owner and return it to Rivers State,” he said.