The Labour Party governorship candidate in the 2015 general elections in Rivers state, Prince Tonye Princewill has said that the arrest of the former Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC) in Rivers State, Gesila Khan and other officials of the Independent National Electoral Commissioner (INEC) over alleged bribery in the last polls should not be celebrated by the All Progressives Congress (APC) and other Nigerians till they are prosecuted and proven guilty.
Princewill said this to journalists over the weekend in Port Harcourt, noting that officers, participants and electorate found guilty should be punished for electoral frauds.
He advised Nigerians to brace up and to conduct themselves in a better manner during elections to save the nation’s democracy.
Princewill stated that the 2015 elections and the rerun legislative polls held on March 19, 2016 have shown that there is no consequence for electoral misconduct, adding that, an arrest and investigation is not the same as a conviction.
He advocated that electoral fraud should be taken seriously because it allows wrong persons to be put in the right place. He expressed sadness that Nigeria is the laughing stock of the world as good people have lost faith in the electoral process.
Princewill lamented that what Nigeria is practicing is not the democracy that the people collectively fought for, stressing that, “unpopular now rules the popular”.
He maintained that those who said that the last rerun election was bad, have no clue as to what the 2015 election was like, stressing that, if politicians have no alternative to politics, then their politics will remain a do or die affair, especially when death has no consequence.
He regretted that INEC is now a referee that cannot even issue red cards”.
Princewill however advised Nigerians to do all they can to remain peaceful, saying that God is not sleeping and every cloud has a silver lining.
