How Rivers Electoral Body Plans To Conduct LG Polls Without Police, DSS

• Fubara’s Party Not Fielding Candidates

Signals are emerging clearer, that the Rivers State Independent Electoral Commission may have been smarter than the FCT Minister and those driving a section of the APC in the state, as preparations for the October 5 local Government election in the state get to a crescendo.

TNN has confirmed that the RISIEC has gone ahead to make its arrangements for the security of the electoral materials and personnel of the commission that would be involved in the exercise, since neither the police nor men of the DSS are likely to be involved in the election.

This is coming even as the electoral commission now boats of taking possession of the voters’ register in readiness of the election. A federal high court in Abuja had ordered that the NPF and the DSS should not provide security during the election.

Also, the court had ordered that INEC should not release the voters’ register to RISIEC for the election. But retired Justice Adolphus Enebeli insists that no court in the land can stop the conduct of the election, based on the provisions of the state electoral commission law enacted in 2018.

On Thursday, TNN learnt that RISIEC may have made arrangements for other security agencies to provide security during the election. One of such agencies is the National Security and Civil Defense Corps, NSCDC.

The court order did not bar the NSCDC from providing security to RISIEC, neither did it bar the use of non-conventional security agencies from providing security for the election.

Enebeli has already hinted that as long as the police and the DSS were not the only existing security organs, the commission under him would explore other security apparatus for the election. He did not, however, say which of the security agencies he would work with.

The chairman of RISIEC spoke on Thursday when he unveiled the voters register that would be used for the election. In apparent reference to the court order from the federal high court, Enebeli said it was in his character to be proactive in all that he does and that the register had been collected from INEC since last year. The court order came in July this year.

Meanwhile, the ruling PDP will not be part of the election. But the APC controlled by Emeka Bekee is fielding candidates for the election, even though all the candidates fielded by the APP are loyalists of the governor, Sim Fubara.