2025 Rivers LG election: An epicenter of democracy’s derailment

By Isaiah Adewole

The concept of local government is the bedrock of democracy. It is the tier of government closest to the people, designed to address grassroots needs and give citizens a direct voice in their own governance. Yet, in Nigeria, this foundational pillar has been systematically eroded, transformed into a travesty of democratic principles. The recently concluded Rivers State Local Government election, it appears, is not an anomaly; it is a perfect, damning case study of the derailment of democracy under the current political administration, where under the watch of the Federal Government, the National Assembly, and the Rivers State Sole Administrator, electoral exercises are weaponized not to measure public will, but to mock it.

The most glaring evidence of this derailment lies in the mathematically impossible voter participation figures officially declared by the Rivers State Independent Electoral Commission (RSIEC). To put it bluntly, the numbers do not add up, and they reveal a brazen attempt to launder political power through a fraudulent electoral process.

The statistical implosion of credibility and the 2025 RSIEC “miracle”

In the 2023 gubernatorial polls, conducted by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), there are Total Registered Voters of 3.53 million in Rivers State and the Total Votes Cast in the Gubernatorial Election was 494,604.

The Rivers 2025 LG election has a total votes of 1,915,629, which is statistically an unprecedented catastrophe.
In Obio/Akpor LGA, where the PDP chairmanship candidate was declared winner with 328,823 votes, the total votes cast for the 2023 gubernatorial election was 91,151. In Port Harcourt LGA, the PDP winner received 235,054 votes, whereas, the total votes cast in 2023 gubernatorial election was 81,068.

Here’s the incontrovertible proof of the fraud: The votes allegedly cast for a single chairmanship candidate in just these three LGAs alone is 563,937 which is higher than the total votes cast in the entire state in the much more significant 2023 gubernatorial election.

This is a statistical impossibility. It suggests that voter turnout for the local council elections was not just high, but dramatically exceeded the turnout for a presidential and gubernatorial election held just two years prior. This defies all logic, historical data, and the well-documented culture of voter apathy that surrounds state-run LG polls.

The anatomy of a democratic derailment

RSIEC is not independent. In this scenario, it is an appendage of the Federal Government, constituted by the Sole Administrator of Rivers State, Vice Admiral Ibok-Ete Ibas. In this case, the election was a proxy war between factions, and it appears the commission served not the people, but the political interests of the powerful. Its primary role was not to oversee a fair contest but to sanctify a pre-determined outcome with fabricated numbers.
True democracy thrives on choice. The results, a near-total sweep by one party, mirror the exact anti-democratic patterns of the past, merely with the party names swapped. The absence of a credible opposition victory, despite the evident political schism in the state, signals that the outcome was negotiated in power meetings, not polling units.

This derailment has a direct human cost. When local government chairs are selected, not elected, their allegiance is to the godfathers who appointed them, not the constituents they are meant to serve. This stifles grassroots development, entrenches corruption, and denies citizens their right to hold power accountable.

The Rivers State election is an indication of a national crisis. The derailment of democracy is not always marked by soldiers in the streets; sometimes, it is advanced by civil servants in electoral commissions, quietly typing impossible numbers into a spreadsheet to satisfy their political masters.

The figures from Rivers State are not signs of a healthy democracy; they are the fevered hallucinations of a dying one. They stand as a stark monument to the current political godfathers’ disregard for electoral integrity and their commitment to maintaining power by any means necessary, even if it means derailing democracy itself.

Until independent commissions conduct local elections and the votes of citizens truly count, the promise of grassroots democracy in Nigeria will remain a cruel joke, with the people as the punchline.

….Isaiah Adewole, LAUTECH student, writes from Ogbomoso and could be reached on adewoleisaiah33@gmail.com

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