Rivers Council Elections To Hold October 5

Local government elections in Rivers State will now take place on October 5, 2024, according to the Chairman of Rivers State Independent Electoral Commission, retired Justice Adolphus Enebeli.
Enebeli announced the new date at a special stakeholders’ meeting the commission called at its office in Port Harcourt to discuss he the elections. At the meeting, the Chairman of the Inter-party Advisory Committee, Sensei Solsuema Osaro presented the list of authentic party chairman and secretaries in the state.
The tenure of the last local government chairmen and councilors elapsed on June 17th, 2024. But they were not replaced with elected officials because the state did not conduct elections to elect people to fill the vacant positions.
Instead the Governor of the state, Mr. Siminalayi Fubara, appointed caretaker committees to run the affairs of the local governments pending when elections are held to elect officials. The appointment of the new caretaker committee members was approved by the three-man House of Assembly faction under the speakership of Mr. Victor Oko-Jumbo.
However the new caretaker committees could not move into their respective council offices spread across the state because the council secretariats have been sealed by policemen deployed by the Commissioner of Police, Mr. Olatunji Disu.
Disu said the police would not move out of the councils until the seeming political crisis in the state between political factions loyal to Governor Fubara and the former governor, Nyesom Wike was resolved.
The former local government chairmen, who were loyal to Wike had vowed that they would not vacate their offices even at the expiration of their tenures because they were relying on an amendment of the local government law made by the 27-man faction of the House of Assembly, which ended their tenures by six months.
That faction, which is under the speakership of Mr. Martins Amaewhule, had however been declared invalid because by a Rivers State High Court, which said their defection from the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP to the All Progressives Congress, APC, meant that they had lost their seats in the assembly.
The matter is now before the Court of Appeal, which will have to give judgment anytime soon. But in the interim it asked all parties in the suit to maintain the status quo, which each party had tried to interpret to suit their own ends.