BY Ayodele Oluwafemi
Siminalayi Fubara, governor of Rivers, has sworn in the 23 newly elected local government chairpersons in the state.
The swearing-in ceremony took place on Sunday at the government house in Port Harcourt, the Rivers state capital.
Bala Mohammed, governor of Bauchi state, was present at the ceremony.
On Saturday, the Rivers State Independent Electoral Commission (RSIEC) conducted the LGA elections despite the absence of security operatives.
On the same day, Adolphus Enebeli, chairman of RSIEC, declared the Action Peoples Party (APP) as the winner of 22 LGAs while the Action Alliance (AA) won one LGA.
Fubara had recently directed his loyalists to defect to the APP to contest the election.
The build-up to the Rivers LGA elections was trailed by controversy which was exacerbated by conflicting court orders and pushback from the All Progressives Congress (APC) and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).
On September 4, a high court in Rivers state held that RSIEC could conduct the LGA elections using the 2023 voter register.
But on September 30, a federal high court in Abuja barred the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) from releasing the voter register to RSIEC.
The court also barred the inspector-general of police and the Department of State Services (DSS) from providing security for the elections.
Despite the federal high court ruling and the withdrawal of security personnel, Fubara said the election would proceed as planned.
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