- Safiu Kehinde
The Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Minister, Nyesom Wike, has on Saturday cast his vote at his polling unit in the ongoing Rivers State Local Government rerun election.
NPO earlier Reported the FCT Minister’s presence in the state ahead of the election.
As captured in a post shared on X, Wike arrived at polling unit 007 Ward 9, Rumuepirikom, Obio/Akpor Local Government Area of the state.
The FCT Minister would proceed to exercise his franchise at the poll.
Addressing newsmen after th exercise, Wike expressed his delight with the conduct of the election which, according to him, is essential for the release of the Federal Government allocation to the local governments.
While also expressing his gratitude to Tinubu for ensuring the conduct of the election, Wike explained that the conduct of the LG election will pave way for the return of Fubara and the suspended members of the State House of Assembly once the emergency is lifted on the 18th of September.
“If you do something that is not known to law, it will be set aside. And now that the process is very clear and goes according to the law, nobody is worried.
“What people are doing is to come out and cast their votes for whoever they want to represent them at the Local Government level.
“And that is why we have to thank Mr. President for taking the bold step to make sure that this election is conducted.
“First of all, if the election is not conducted, you know that the Supreme Court has said there is nothing like caretaker committees in Local Government.
“And if there are no elected people, it means that funds will not come from the Federation account to Local Government councils.
“And that means that if the emergency rule is lifted and the local government election will still have the same problem.
“And now that the local government election is taking place, it means that there will be elected people and that they will get fund directly from the Federation account.
“Everybody must rally round to support the conduct of this election in order to stabilised the grassroot level.
“By the time the state of emergency is lifted on the 18th of September, it means that the governor and the State Assembly will come back. Without Local Government, it will not have been complete.
“We are very glad that today, we are conducting this election.
“By the end of the day, elected people will emerge and they will be sworn in and we will know that we have elected representatives at the grassroot level.” Wike said.