As part of the 57th independence celebration, Governor Wike also paid the fines for 19 convicts to regain their freedom, commuted 32 death sentences to life imprisonment, approved unconditional release of 32 convicts from prison and granted free pardon to three convicts.
He said: “After nearly 18 unbroken years of democracy and despite positive assertions to the contrary, our democracy keeps floundering under the watch of the Federal Government just as the vast majority of Nigerians are alienated from the State and estranged from the development process and denied the dividends of democracy.
Governor Wike said that the reality is that the country is deeply divided, constantly flirting with crisis from the hegemonic tendencies of the powers that be, who have failed and are unwilling to even acknowledge the depth of injustice against other sections of the country, especially the minority resource-bearing communities.
He said: “We all crave for strong national institutions to support our democracy, protect our freedoms and advance our development. Unfortunately, instead of advancing our democracy and protecting our liberties, some of our most important national institutions, specially the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and the Nigerian Police have become the undertakers of their destruction by acts of deliberate compromise, partisanship and even sabotage in the discharge of their constitutional responsibilities.”
The governor added: “How else can we attribute INEC’s misfeasance and criminal complicity in the emerging but strange jurisprudential contraption in election disputes where fake results produced and procured from the custody of terribly partisan Police agency were validated and accepted as evidentially superior to its own results by the electoral tribunals to overturn the returns it genuinely and rightly made in respect of the outcome of the 2016 legislative re-run elections in Rivers State?”.
Governor Wike said that after 57 years of attaining independence, the nation’s judiciary constantly suffers from systemic intimidation and denied the strength to act with courage and conviction to defend the constitutional rights of Nigerians to freely elect their leaders through free and fair elections.
High point of the independence anniversary celebration was the release of pigeons by Governor Wike.
Governor Wike said that the reality is that the country is deeply divided, constantly flirting with crisis from the hegemonic tendencies of the powers that be, who have failed and are unwilling to even acknowledge the depth of injustice against other sections of the country, especially the minority resource-bearing communities.
He said: “We all crave for strong national institutions to support our democracy, protect our freedoms and advance our development. Unfortunately, instead of advancing our democracy and protecting our liberties, some of our most important national institutions, specially the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and the Nigerian Police have become the undertakers of their destruction by acts of deliberate compromise, partisanship and even sabotage in the discharge of their constitutional responsibilities.”
The governor added: “How else can we attribute INEC’s misfeasance and criminal complicity in the emerging but strange jurisprudential contraption in election disputes where fake results produced and procured from the custody of terribly partisan Police agency were validated and accepted as evidentially superior to its own results by the electoral tribunals to overturn the returns it genuinely and rightly made in respect of the outcome of the 2016 legislative re-run elections in Rivers State?”.
High point of the independence anniversary celebration was the release of pigeons by Governor Wike.
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