RIVERS: We Won’t Contest Wike’s Victory Says APC

The All Progressives Congress, APC has said it will not contest the victory of Governor Nyesom Wike as winner of the just concluded governorship election in Rivers State.

Wike under the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP was declared Governor-elect by the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC after he defeated his closest challenger, Biokpamabo Awara of the African Alliance Congress, AAC with 886,264 votes against the latter’s 173, 859 votes.

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The margin of victory between Wike and Awara is 712,405.

National Publicity Secretary of the APC, Mallam Lanre Issa-Onilu who made the disclosure while answering questions from newsmen in Abuja, said the APC will not contest the outcome of the polls since it didn’t field a candidate in the election.

Issa-Onilu said: “It is not true that APC felt hurt over PDP’s victory. We don’t have anything to do with the Rivers State election. APC didn’t have candidates in the election and that is why, from the beginning, we didn’t throw ourselves so much into it.

“You knew that the Supreme Court ruled that we were not qualified to contest.
So, on that basis, whatever what happened in Rivers, whether at the local government that gave 80,000 votes during the presidential election and suddenly produced 320,000 votes for Wike during governorship election didn’t hurt us in any way.”

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“If INEC says that was correct, fine; it is up to the parties involved to take action if they find it necessary but for us at APC, we didn’t have the opportunity to contest unfairly in Rivers State,” he added.

Though the APC did not participate in any election in the state due to legal issues that barred it from contesting in the polls, it however supported the AAC and its candidate for governor, Mr Awara.

Mr Awara had after the declaration of Wike as governor-elect, rejected the results of the polls, alleging that it was rigged in favour of the Wike.

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