APC sweeps local elections in Rivers

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The All Progressives Congress (APC) has swept the polls in Saturday’s local elections in Rivers State, according to a report by Punch newspaper.

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According to the paper, the APC won in 20 out of the 23 councils, while the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) won in three.

The paper said the Chairperson of the local election commission in Rivers, Michael Odey, announced the election results on Sunday afternoon in Port Harcourt, and that the suspended Governor of Rivers State, Siminalayi Fubara, lost his Opobo-Nkoro Local Government Area to the APC.

Low voter turnout marred the elections.

Rivers has been a PDP state, but its politics has been greatly controlled by a former governor of the state, Nyesom Wike, a PDP member, who has not hidden his loyalty to the APC. Mr Wike, who is now the FCT minister, has been engaged in a protracted political battle against his successor, Mr Fubara, for control of the political structures in the oil-rich state.

During Saturday’s election, a PDP agent in one ward said his party had unanimously endorsed the candidate of the APC, apparently indicating Mr Wike’s grip on both parties.

Mr Fubara is seeking to return to office soon, after President Bola Tinubu suspended him and the state legislature for six months in March this year. He and his supporters had shunned the local elections in the state.

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Mr Wike helped Mr Fubara to win the 2023 Rivers governorship election against all odds, but the two politicians fell apart a few months after.

READ ALSO: Tinubu hails winners of by-elections in 12 states

Before Governor Fubara’s suspension, his administration conducted local elections in October last year, in which a relatively unknown political party, the Action Peoples Party (APP), won in 22 local government areas. The governor and his supporters went to the APP because of Mr Wike’s control of the PDP and the APC.

But the Supreme Court later nullified the elections.

President Tinubu appointed sole administrator for Rivers, Ibok-Ete Ibas, a retired naval chief, sacked members of the election commission that conducted the local elections under Fubara’s administration, and appointed new ones who conducted Saturday’s election.