TheCable

The All Progressives Congress (APC) in Rivers state says the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) is making moves to include its candidates on the ballot for the 2019 elections.

The party said this at a press conference which held after members of the party protested at the INEC head office in the state on Thursday.

A high court in the state had barred the party from conducting primaries to nominate candidates to represent APC in the forthcoming elections.

Relying on the judgment, INEC failed to enlist candidates of the party for the governorship, national and state assembly elections.

But Chris Finebone, the party’s publicity secretary, said the judgement of the court was misinterpreted.

“After a meeting of the State Working Committee of our party in the State today in which we meticulously deliberated on the recent court rulings of various courts especially the decision of the Court of Appeal sitting in Port Harcourt yesterday to further re-affirm two earlier orders that stayed the execution of the judgments of the lower court, our conclusion is that the APC and its candidates will now, most certainly, be on the ballot this Saturday,” the statement read.

“No order or judgement given since, including orders given by the Supreme Court on both jurisdiction and representation have said otherwise.

“We opted not to rely on a media circus to convey our right to be included. Unlike the many news reports that were suggesting we were dead and buried, we have since seen the orders and the Supreme Court judgement on the stay of execution which proves beyond reasonable doubt that INEC has an obligation to relist APC or risk being sanctioned for excluding us and disobeying a subsisting court order.

“We hail once again both decisions of the stay of execution, taken by the Court of Appeal recently and their reaffirmation of both yesterday. These decisions mean that nothing is stopping INEC from placing APC on the ballot. We welcome the moves by INEC to put us back on the ballot, as the alternative would have confirmed once and for all, the genuine fear that they are working for the PDP.”

Festus Okoye, a national commissioner of INEC, dismissed the claim of the party.

“To the best of my knowledge, that is incorrect,” he told TheCable via telephone.