By Ben Kerrigan, Ade Martins And Lucy Caulkett
ABUJA- A petition which has gathered over 12,500 signatures on change.org for the United Kingdom, United States, Canada, and the entirety of the European and Asian continents to cancel the Rivers State Governor, Nyesom Wike’s visa is gathering pace.
Nyesome Wike,(pictured) the current governor of Rivers State in Nigeria is widely believed to be obstructing the electoral process by hiring thugs to intimidate candidates and their supporters and snatch ballot boxes, thereby disrupting the smooth running of the presidential process.
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No hard evidence has been produced to support the current allegations.
Evidence of thugs in Rivers State snatching ballot boxes and burning them was posted on Tiktok, with many pointing the clear finger at the current wayward governor of the state for the attacks.
Wike has for months publicly made his strong opposition to his own party’s presidential candidate Abubakar Atiku clearly known, after the latter clinched the party ticket to represent the party for the presidential elections, a position in which Wike had himself wanted to be the party flag bearer.
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A circulated video on Youtube featuring the governor issuing threats to INEC officials whom he had bribed to distort the elections way back in 2016 results reveals Wike threatening to have an INEC official killed if he failed to follow his instructions after collecting in excess of $20,000 to interfere with the political electoral process in favour of the governor.
The damning evidence has still not seen the governor arrested or jailed for reasons best known to the unreliable legal system in Nigeria , but analysts believe it has emboldened Wike further to feel untouchable and pursue more deplorable acts of violence through the deployment of hoodlums.
Sources in Nigeria are adamant that Wike is responsible for the wave of attacks on Ballot boxes in Rivers State, in much the same manner it is believed he won a second term as governor of the state. He is also accused of being the master mind behind attacks on the convoy of governorship candidates.
Governorship candidates campaigning last month were also subjected to violent stoning by hoodlums believed to have been sponsored by the volatile governor, who is at odds with party over their selection of Abubakar Atiku
The authour of the petition, Onyebuchi Ezeagabu, alleged that Wike was “operating to destroy electoral process,” adding that the eligibility of the governor’s Visa and that of his family should be revoked.
Ezeagabu wrote, “The Rivers State Governor, Nyesom Wike, has been operating to destroy electoral process in the state he governs. We demand his and his family’s visas eligibility revoked.”
A signee, Amechi Victor said, “He is against democracy in Nigeria. He just manipulated election results.”
Another person who supported the petition, Ugochi Agua-Onyekwelu, wrote, “This man has caused a lot of trouble and thuggery in the Nigerian political scene. He is always inciting people against the Igbos and have actually carried out the killing of thousands of Igbo men in his state at Obigbo, PH. He believes so much in violence and talks carelessly like a lout.”
The governor is accused of being responsible for the unlawful arrest of a journalist from The PUNCH.
The affected reporter, known as Gbenga Oloniniran, was on Saturday afternoon arrested by a team of policemen near the residence of Governor Wike in Rumuiprikon, in the Obio/Akpor Local Government Area of the state.Oloniniran, after taking snapshots of a scene where policemen were arresting some youths at a polling unit when the officers swooped on him.
The officers attached to the Swift Operation Squad reportedly seized the journalist’s phone, assaulted him and bundled him into their van.
The lawless policeman subsequently pointed a gun at Oloniniran, who immediately obeyed instructions by lying flat on the floor.
He was beaten while in the van even as they deleted several pictures he had previously taken, including those taken while he was being arrested.
The reporter was released at the Rivers State University Junction in Port Harcourt after the matter was reported to the Rivers State Police Command spokesperson, Grace Iringe-Koko.
International observers in the lawless country of Nigeria have been inundated with complaints from several aggrieved parties, mainly from angry and dejected youths who feel their votes have been ignored by malicious agents determined to sabotage the process.
Wike, is believed to have an awful lot of money enough to pay his way to get pretty much what he wants in Nigeria.
One disheartened youth from Rivers told The Eye Of Media.Com on the condition of anonymity: ”Wike is a poisonous character obstructing the democratic process of the elections. He offers the kind of money the people on the receiving end have never seen before. Even people in INEC have family to feed, many of them cannot say no to his life changing sums of money.
”We can’t have any fair elections with Wike bent on having his way. We all know he is supporting Tinubu of the APC, but he has never declared it publicly.
Ab audio tape of him bribing INEC elections and threatening to kill an official if he did not carry out his orders has been there on youtube for years for everybody to see. Yet no action has been taken. The system itself is scared of Wike, this is a man who paid delegates thousands of dollars in full view of the public and the Nigerian media in the build up to the elections. It is absolutely scandalous. Elections in Nigeria are a sham”.
Attention is now likely to go to British High Commissioner to Nigeria, Catriona Laing, who last May said the United Kingdom, UK, would deny visas to Nigerians who disrupt 2023 elections, and in particular highlighted, Rivers State governor, Nyesome Wike and Amaechi
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