Dead ‘Corper’ wins jumbo allowance for others as Wike sets panel on electoral violence in Rivers

 

A National Youth Service Corp (NYSC) member serving in a part of Rivers State, Dumiebi Samuel Okonta, lost his life conducting the March 19, 2016, rerun election, but this has won 100 percent increase to allowances paid by the state government to 7,500 members that serve in three batches per year.

The state government has also promised to compensate the family, immortalise Okonta, and do many other things to help NYSC members in the state.

This is as the governor of the state, Nyesom Wike, has set up a judicial commission of inquiry to unravel those behind the violence on the rerun day.

Okonta died in the Ahoada area of the state after gunshot injuries. The police said they arrested 24 persons for electoral violence but did not say if those that killed the corper were among.

Now, Wike has announced increase in allowances from N5,000 per month to N10,000, saying those serving in the rural areas would get N15,000 per month. Some said this would be backdated to 2012.

Wike, who named the chairman of the commission as Monima Wenike Danagogo, assured President Muhammadu Buhari that in a broadcast last week of his determination to support the security agencies to fight crime and criminality and ensure that Rivers State was secure, safe and peaceful for people to live, enjoy and go about their legitimate social and economic activities.

Wike called on the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and all other agencies in the management of the electoral process, including the political parties and the candidates, to play by the established rules and ensure that the re-run elections to be conducted in the remaining eight Local Government Areas were devoid of malpractices and violence of any kind.

Reacting, the All Progressives Congress (APC) dismissed the governor’s award of bonuses to NYSC members and the commission of inquiry as cover up. The APC recalled that following the killings associated with the 2015 electoral violence in Rivers State in 2015, the former governor set up a commission to unravel the issues behind the killings.

“Nyesom Wike and the PDP swiftly filed suit No FHC/PHC/256/2015 at a Port Harcourt against the sitting of that Commission. One of their arguments was that the former governor was an interested party in what happened during the elections and therefore should not have set up the panel.”

The APC went on: “This time, Governor Nyesom Wike is on record for having threatened violence and death to stakeholders long before and even during the rerun elections. There is no doubt that the several gave rise to the widespread and wanton killings. Therefore, where lies the enabling neutrality and moral high ground for the governor to set up a commission of inquiry to investigate this matter?” The party threatened to ensure that the commission died on arrival.

On the bonus to NYSC members, the statement by the APC’s publicity secretary, Chris Finebone, accused the state government of creating the conditions that led to Okonta’s death.  “As an INEC ad-hoc staff, late Samuel Okonta and his colleagues were asked by Nyesom Wike to write their will because they might be killed during the rerun elections. After Wike’s threat materialised, it was shocking to see the governor rush to sign the condolence register of late Samuel Okonta. By signing the condolence register, the APC believes that Wike simply countersigned the will written by late Okonta on the advice of the governor.

“Not done with this, Governor Wike announced that the Rivers State Government will immortalise the dead Corp member. However, the APC wishes to advise Nyesom Wike that members of the NYSC and others who function as INEC ad-hoc and permanent staff would prefer to remain alive than to be sent to their early graves and later immortalised. No amount of monetary inducements or mundane accolades is worth the death of anyone under any circumstances.”