JODEL, A Media Group Rejects Nigeria's Polls

Journalists for Niger Delta (JODEL), a media group led by one of the leading journalists in Nigeria's oil and gas region, Akanimo Sampson, has strongly condemned the conduct of the April 14, 2007 polls in most parts of the region.

JODEL's Information Officer,Anayo Onukwugha, in a wired statement on Monday, said that the polls in Rivers State was largely non-existent.

According to the group, as at 2.30 pm on the polling day, Saturday, April 14, hundreds of thousands of voters in the state could not cast their votes.

The statement said that at Mini- Okoro and Elelenwo axis of Obio/Akpor local government area of the state, election did not take place.

In security parlance, the council area was labelled as a flash -point by security agencies following sporadic shooting incident between armed security forces and unidentified gunmen.

According to the group, the gun-battle erupted folwing the killing of seven senior polce officers and the razing of police stations at Mini-Okoro and Elelenwo by the gunmen.

The gunmen, who struck in the early hours of the polling day, Saturday, also abducted three police officers, carted away large quantity of arms and ammunition and set ablaze five cars and unspecified number of motor bikes.

Before now, the council area was regarded as a strong political base for the Speaker of Rivers State House of Assembly, Rotimi Amaechi, who was only few days to election date expelled from the ruling Peoples Demcratic Party (PDP) and disqualified from contesting the governorship election.

In the riverine areas of the state, we got report soldiers were deployed to quell a potentially dangerous political up-rising.

As at the time of their deployment, there were security reports of arson and killings in Andoni area where the state Chairman of the PDP, Uche Secondus comes from as well as the home base of the deputy governorship candidate of the opposition Democratic Peoples Party (DPP),Sampson Ngerebara.

The deputy governorship candidate of the PDP, Tele Ikuru is also from that axis.

Therefore, the political upheaval in that are a was not surprising to perceptical political thinkers.

In the Kalabari area, where the son of the monarch, Tonye Princewill was running on the platform of the Action Congress (AC), the political party of Nigeria's Vice President, Atiku Abubarkar, who has been in a protracted political battle with the out-going Nigeria's leader, Olusegun Obasanjo, there were wide alegation of electoral fraud.

The ruling PDP was being accused of hoarding electoral materials and pushing out ballot papers suspected to be fake into the polling centres.

In Edo State, notable labour leader and AC governorship candidate, Adams Oshiohmole was said to have refuse to cast his vote until the people of the state were made to vote.

Oshiohmole's insistence on that was said to have distablised the plans of the PDP to, perhaps, rig the election.

In Abia State, one of the oil producing states in the South -East zone of Nigeria and where Orji Uzor Kalu holds sway, there were scarcity of electoral materials even as at 1.00 pm.

Kalu, the presidential candidate of the Progressive Peoples Alliance (PPA) and a well known critic of President Olusegun Obasanjo's administration is believed to be capable of dominating the electoral process in the area in a free and fair election.

Editor's Note: JODEL is co-ordinated by Akanimo Sampson, who is also the Port Harcourt Bureau Chief of Daily Times of Nigeria.

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