By Jimitota Onoyume

PORT HARCOURT— About 2,000 members of All Progressives Congress, APC, in Rivers State, yesterday, staged a peaceful protest to the Rivers State House of Assembly complex on Moscow Road, Port Harcourt, demanding the swearing-in of Victoria Nyeche and Andrew Miller as members of the Assembly.

Rivers State Governor, Nyesom Ezenwo Wike

Nyeche represents Port Harcourt Constituency 1 while Miller represents Opobo/Nkoro constituency. They were elected on the platform of APC.

Meanwhile, the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, chairman in the state, Mr Felix Obuah, has accused the APC of embarking on the protest ostensibly to scuttle the re-run elections in the state.

Obuah, in a statement in Port Harcourt, said: “It is now very clear that the APC has devised a new strategy to put the rescheduled re-run elections in the state perpetually on hold to make up for its unpreparedness.

“The ploy include cooking up fallacies and spurious allegations, and using such as basis for state-wide protests against the July 30, 2016 concluding re-run elections in the remaining eight local areas of the state.”

Obuah said that the ploy centred mainly on giving names and blackmailing some officials of the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, who they have not been able to buy over, desiring only compromised INEC officials who will do their bidding during the elections besides making unguarded and provocative statements against the PDP and its candidates for the elections.

It will be recalled that while Miller was absent on April 21 this year when other members took their oaths of office on the floor of the House for the 8th Assembly, Nyeche could not be sworn in because of an interim injunction granted by Justice Adolphus Enebeli of a Rivers State High Court sitting in Port Harcourt, restraining the Speaker from administering the oath of office on her.

Justice Enebeli had ordered that status quo be maintained until the issue before the court was determined

A political activist in the state, Mr Livingstone Wechie, had approached the court praying it to restrain the assembly from administering the oath of office on Nyeche as member of the Assembly.

A chieftain of the APC, Mr Charles Aholu, told Vanguard that the protest was about demanding for fairness and equity in the state judiciary.

He wondered why the duo of Nyeche and Miller had not been administered the oath of office as members even after they had been issued certificate of Return by INEC.