*say APC needs the remaining 22 seats of the State Assembly to take over the state
In a shocking move on Wednesday, Defeated Rivers State APC Governorship Candidate, Dakuku Peterside requested that Buhari should skew the security and INEC structure in favour of Rivers State APC to enable the party rig the rerun legislative elections.
He said it has become necessary to make the request as Rivers APC members are suffering for supporting Buhari. He spoke when he led a delegation to APC National Headquarters.
He said: “We are all witnesses to how some of these actors found it convenient to annul results which were favourable to APC but upheld all those favourable to PDP under the same circumstances in the recently concluded governorship election in Bayelsa State.
“Meanwhile, politically speaking Rivers and Bayelsa States are in the same sub-zone of the South South geo-political zone. What has been put in place is to marginalise us and our members feel nothing is being done to change these structures to, atleast, give us a fighting chance in neutrality.”
On the Rivers State rerun elections scheduled for March 19, Mr Peterside said, “The issues of the re-run elections are paramount in our mind. We have 22 seats in a House of 32-man membership. Winning all 22 seats will give us 23 seats and that will enable us produce the Speaker of the House. Also, that number is more than the proverbial two-third. Furthermore, there are 12 House of Representatives seats and all 3 Senatorial Seats to be contested for.
“Presently, the Party does not have a two-third majority in any of the chambers of the National Assembly…Now the opportunity to up the party’s numbers in these chambers has come and we expect that the Party will do all that it takes to win all 12 House of Representatives and 3 Senate Seats.
“Even if this may not give it the needed two-thirds but it wil make the party to have a robust majority such that it won’t struggle to have its programmes and plans that require parliamentary inputs to be easily implemented to achieve its set goals and core mandate.