Rivers LG poll: RISIEC recognises Okocha-led APC

•Beke faction vows to sue electoral body

The Rivers State Independent Electoral Commission (RISIEC) has recognised only the candidates sent to the commission by the Chief Tony Okocha-led All Progressives Congress (APC) for the August 30th local government elections.

RSIEC Commissioner for Administration and Legal Matters, Prof. Chidi Holiday, confirmed the development during an interaction with members of some civil society organisations (CSOs) in Port Harcourt.

Halliday acknowledged that the commission received two lists from the party, saying the first came from the Okocha-led APC while the last came from the Beke-led APC.

But he declared that the latter submitted theirs against the duration specified by the state electoral umpire.

Halliday said the commission only collected the list from the Chief Beke APC for record purposes.

“We know that we have the lists of candidates of APC that we monitored their primaries”, he said adding that the Chief Beke APC never indicated any interest in joining the elections.

He said that RSIEC was not privy to any court case involving any factions of the party, adding that it was its duties to attempt to resolve any internal wrangling therefrom.

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He said: “INEC is the body that registered political parties and has the record of the executive of any political party. Not even the Court will impose an executive on any political party. So all those we are dealing with are from the records that we got from INEC.

“To us you don’t after the primaries are over to start submitting your list. So all those we are dealing with are from the records that we got from INEC.”

But the Spokesperson for the Emeka Beke led APC, Darlington Nwauju, insisted that they submitted their list to RSIEC on time.

Nwauju said they expected the commission to engage only with the party led by Chief Beke, which he said, was legally recognised.

He said: “As we speak we have the list of our candidates with RSIEC. Any attempt to publish any name or names without the endorsement of our Chairman, Chief Emeka Beke and the State Secretary, Sam Sam Etetegwungas being candidates of the All Progressives Congress in Rivers State will attract the long arm of the law.”