By Mark Lenu
Blackouts have returned to many local government areas of Rivers State following the refusal of some caretaker committees to pay electricity bills.
Shortly after Governor Siminalayi Fubara inaugurated the current caretaker committee chairmen in June, most of the CTC chairmen paid the electricity bills owed by their predecessors, and their respective communities were lit up again.
It is now clear that some of the CTC chairmen were paying the electricity bills to get endorsed by Governor, Fubara to contest the October 5 local government election in the state.
In Degema LGA for – instance, as soon as the current CTC chairman, Anthony Soberekon noticed that the governor would not give him a ticket to run for elective chairmanship seat, the blackout returned again to the communities in the LGA.
This is how a lot of LGAs have been treated by their council chairmen, who only pay for electricity bills when they need the votes of the people and stop paying when they have no hope of contesting for the chairmanship election.
As the people of the state prepare to elect their chairmen and councilors on October 5, voters have been urged to vote only candidates who will put their LGA’s interest first.
Some pressure groups had also advised the governor not to manipulate the conduct of the election in favor of his preferred candidates, insisting that Rivers people want free, fair, credible, and acceptable elections.
The state electoral umpire is also not left out as RSIEC had been urged to be neutral and desist from being used to rig the election. During the preceding week, the Peoples Democratic Party came under heavy criticism after it announced its intention not to participate in the LG election.
The decision of the PDP has been viewed by many as a sign of fear that it would lose in the poll, while others said the PDP decided to pull out of the election because it saw no room to rig the poll.
However, the state PDP chairman, Aaron Chukwuemeka cited the ongoing court case instituted by the Tony Okocha-led APC faction as the reason for the party’s withdrawal from the race.
