Presidential election: Non-indigenes narrate horrifying experience in Rivers
By Terkula Igidi, Abuja & Victor Edozie, Port Harcourt
For hundreds of nonindigenes residing in Rivers State, especially those of Hausa extraction, the March 28 presidential and National Assembly election will forever remain a black day in their lives. Even before the elections commenced, the state was one of the states in the country where pre-election violence rife but it was on the day of election proper that the Hausa community, and other non-indigenes had their share of violence visited on them. Our correspondent who spoke with some of the victims found out that on the election day, the process started on a very good note with the accreditation of eligible voters but midway into the election thugs suspected to be working for a political party opposed to All Progressive Congress (APC) started harassing and attacking those they felt were supporters of APC.
Sunday Trust gathered that the attacks were very visible in Hausa line, a large settlement that has the highest concentration of Hausa residents. From Nembe waterfront, the popular yam zone and the cultural centre, the victims of the vicious attacks narrated their horrifying experience in the hands of political thugs.
Garba Abdulahi is APC youth leader in Port Harcourt city local government council and he told our correspondent how he was attacked.
“On the day of the election we had gathered for accreditation, after that the voting started but along the line we saw a large number of youths armed with cutlasses and broken bottles. Throughout the period we were voting, they were watching us and as soon as we finished casting our votes the thugs confronted each and every one of us and asked which political party we voted for. If you said you voted for a party of their choice they would allow you to go but if you responded in the contrary they will beat you to pulp. A lot of people were injured. They used machetes and bottles to injure so many people. There is this particular chap they broke his head.
Jalo Bello too had a nasty ordeal in the hands of the thugs. He said the mugging he received from the fierce-looking thugs left him with broken legs.
“They broke my legs. They used bottles and stones on me. After casting our votes they started beating us. After casting my vote, as I was on my way out some youths confronted me and asked me which party I voted for. I told them it was APC and they started beating me up, which has left me with broken legs,” he said.
Another non-indigene, Sani Okiri told our correspondent that the lives of people who are not originally from Rivers State are in danger. “Our lives are in serious danger. Tension has really built up in Rivers State. We have been receiving series of threatening messages and they are still threatening us. What happened on March 28, 2015 was terrible and shameful. Those that voted for a particular political party were beaten up and they did this under the nose of law enforcement agents who are supposed to protect everybody. The security agents were helpless as they watch these thugs unleash terror on innocent people. As I am talking to you now, we are still living in fear. They are threatening to unleash more violence on us,” he said.
Speaking with Sunday Trust
a Hausa community leader in Port Harcourt Alhaji Musa Saidu said: “I was in Port Harcourt on that day and was informed about what happened. I was informed about how people were harassed and attacked. But the fact remains that Rivers State is prone to violence in every election. There is no election in the state that is violence-free. Hausa people were not the only victims, it was a general incident that affected so many persons. We condemned those attacks in its entirety. The people that are in APC today were in PDP before, so they know themselves.”
Timothy Ukpera, an indigene of Benue State also narrated his experience to Sunday Trust , saying even in Port Harcourt city where security was beefed up, there was palpable fear in the atmosphere and that prevented many people from going out to vote.
He also said election officials arrived polling units late and accreditation and the voting process also started late and ended the following morning.
He said Rumuidekwe where he went to vote people were asked to either vote for the PDP or were chased away, adding that he quietly left when he saw that the atmosphere was tensed and since there were rumours of people being attacked for voting APC in some other parts of Rivers State, there was trepidation among voters.
“There was fear of even stepping out of your house but I wanted to exercise my franchise so I went out and since I was prevented, after waiting a whole day, I had to go back home. Thank God I wasn’t beaten up because I heard that was what they were doing to people they perceived were for APC. It is unfortunate that some people will deliberately make it difficult for others to perform their constitutional duty,” he told our reporter on phone from Port Harcourt.
He added that most of his fellow Benue people refused to come out on that day because of fear of being victims of the violence that was lurking in the shadows.
Akpaiyo, who also hails from Benue State but resides in Port Harcourt, Rivers State said the Presidential and National Assembly poll in the state was like war. According to him it was either you voted for the Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP) or you incur the wrath of heavily armed political thugs, who wielded guns and other weapons in the full glare of security agents.
Akpaiyo, who spoke with our reporter in Abuja on phone from Port Harcourt said, “A friend told me that he witnessed a situation where a woman who was suspected to have voted for All Progressive Congress (APC) was beaten to a pulp by armed thugs in the presence of security agents in Okrika. It was really tough for those of us who were northerners because the suspicion was that we were going to vote for the APC. What some of us did to save our heads was to pretend that we were going to vote for the PDP.”
He said at AGIP Estate, Okporo road where he voted at midnight of Saturday, March 28, it was rowdy but he succeeded in voting the candidate of his choice because it was secret ballot system.
He however lamented that even though they defied the threats to vote, their votes were not counted because Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) polling officials did not bring results sheets to the polling units.
According to Akpaiyo, the intimidation was more sinister in places like Okrika, Eleme, Gokana and Tai, where he alleged that election materials were hijacked and taken to police stations, where (PDP) thugs thumb printed ballot papers.
“I know a lot of my Tiv brothers who told me they had to flee from polling units for fear of being brutalized. There was this fear that once you are from the north you were not going to vote for the PDP. It was even worst for the Hausa community. In fact, many of them fled before the election and even those who were around during the election could not vote for fear of been attacked. In the whole of Port Harcourt city, it was around Presidential Hotel that some couple of Hausa people vote,” he said.
Timothy Ukpera, an indigene of Benue State also narrated his experience to Sunday Trust , saying even in Port Harcourt city where security was beefed up, there was palpable fear in the atmosphere and that prevented many people from going out
to vote