The reigning debate this time is who is on the list of candidates (especially governorship) and who is not; also, who is ought to be on the list and who ought not be.
Rivers State is a place where every matter, including burial of politician’s mother, will cause controversy and dovetail into conflict and then crisis.
Whereas the list may be generating interest in most states, it is developing controversy. Many ask if O.K China of the APC should have been on the list. Many believed it was not going to be there. When the list showed up with his name inside, the controversy has shifted to why it should not have made it.
Many have counted their calendars to no end trying to show he joined the APC after the submission of list. Many say if the primaries involved that of the House of Reps, then he did not meet up.
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Surprisingly, his name was first to be there. Many now wonder how he made it. They now say it will have to be a court matter, but pre-election matters have made conditionalities, one of which is that the litigant must be a candidate in the election. And must file within time.
With all these hedging fronds around Chinda, many wonder why Nyeson Wike, the FCT Minister who has been Gov Sim Fubara’s biggest antagonist, led a mass of Rainbow Coalition to go pay him homage in the name of negotiation.
The list also raised some glimmer of hopes for the traumatized governor, Fubara, with many hoping that he could be called up to fill in for Chinda. That hope crashed and the Simplified believers slumped in final resignation to their gloom fates.
Another worrisome angle from the list is the fact that two court verdicts nullified the faction of the APC that produced these candidates. Both the High Court and the Court of Appeal have ruled that the Tony Okocha Executive was not the proper Exco to lead. There is no appeal at the Supreme Court. Many wonder what the game-plan for Wike and Okocha is in the face of such a lacuna.
So, the opposition is waiting for any pending court case that may disqualify Chinda; or outcome of the matter of the right Executive. These cases and the pregnant situation seems to breed more grounds for the next round of crisis in the crisis-prone state.
It has acerbated the more festering issue of marginalization of the riverine section of the state where Fubara comes from. The likely return of power to the Upland where power stayed for 24 years seems too much for the people to swallow.
Some argue that the alleged tampering of the backend of the INEC portal may be the key to the smooth sailing of Chinda in the INEC final list. Many claim that court cases may lie ahead.
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