As tribunal sits on Monday, Rivers PDP panics, moves dollar cash to Abuja

An attempt to bribe members of Rivers State Governorship Election Petitions Tribunal may have failed on Friday, leading to panic among chieftains of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the South-South state.
Freedom Online learned that the evidence before the tribunal was so overwhelming that “any bribe may not change the minds of the members”.
It was gathered that two female judges are being used to approach the tribunal members “but they have so far met a brickwall”
Said a source: “During the April 11 elections, the Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC) declared that Nyesom Wike of the PDP won the polls with one million, twenty-nine thousand, one hundred and two (1,029,102) votes while his closest challenger who is the All Progressives Congress (APC) candidate, Dakuku Peterside, won with one hundred and twenty-four thousand, eight hundred and ninety-six (124,896) votes.
“But a recent INEC document signed by the duo of the acting director in charge of INEC Legal Unit, Ibrahim Bawa and head of unit, Data Management, of the Commission’s Information Communication Territory Department, Abimbola Oladunjoye, puts the total number of accredited voters for the governorship election in Rivers State at 292,878, buttressing the allegation of over-bloated figure credited to the PDP and Wike’s victory. So, Wike needs to prove how he got votes that more than tripled the total number of accredited voters, going by the INEC record”.
In this regard and because of the sitting of the tribunal on Monday, the source revealed that “tribunal members are very careful not to commit themselves into a deal they know will not work because of overwhelming evidence. They are still maintaining an uncompromising position. One because of their integrity and two, because of the stance of President Muhammadu Buhari to eradicate bribery and corruption in the polity and the judiciary.
“This position is already giving the PDP and Wike some discomfort. A hurriedly-summoned meeting was held in Port Harcourt, the state capital, on Thursday night. Attended by many PDP chieftains, it lasted several hours. Another will hold on Saturday before some of them move to Abuja for the Monday sitting. In fact, an advanced party is already in Abuja with a lot of money but they are stuck with the dollar cash because nobody wants to collect it from them”.
Another strategy that the PDP wants to use is to frustrate the attempt to inspect ballots used during the election “but how this will be done is still not clear”.
The source said the recent order, granted by the House of Assembly, for the state government to collect loans running into tens of billions of naira may not be unconnected with the attempt to have money to ‘fund the agenda’.
Also, since the former INEC Chairman, Prof. Attahiru Jega, ordered that the Permanent Voters’ Card and Card Reader must not be jettisoned during the April 11 governorship and House of Assembly elections, the PDP and Wike need to convince the tribunal members how the more than one million votes garnered by Wike was achieved.