The Kano chapter of All Progressive Congress ( APC) Monday accused Independent Electoral Commission (INEC) of deliberately truncating it’s victory by suspending weekend state House of Assembly rerun at Minjibir.
The party in first reaction through the state party chairman, Alhaji Abdullahi Abbas said that the Resident Electoral Commissioner, Alhaji Abdullahi Mohammed Kaugama was overstretching his powers as guaranteed by constitution. The Resident Electoral Commissioner, Mr Abdullahi Mohammed Kaugama had last Saturday cancelled the rerun by midday following reported cases of ballot boxes snatches and other vital election materials by hoodlums.
Kaugama who was sent to Kano from Kaduna State to conduct the bye election told reporters that the Commission took the decision in order to avoid further spread of violence in the area. But Alhaji Abdullahi Abbas said that “the decision to put on hold a peaceful exercise at a point APC was coasting home for victory was a clear case of sabotage by a man we suspected was a PDP card carrying member” Abbas stated “we as a party had expected consultation with relevant stakeholders especially the police that deployed over 1800 officers and men on ground” He said that Minjibir has 156 polling units most it are located outside the town, adding that “it was high handedness for a Resident Electoral Commissioner to single handedly suspend a process that was largely peaceful except in just 4 polling units.
Alhaji Abbas argued that “in the worst case scenario, we expected the electoral umpire to apply appropriate measures where violence occured by simply suspending the exercise in the affected polling units” Abbas explained that “security reports suggested that the entire election was not under threat that could warrant possible cancellation against the backdrop that we had 1800 police on ground”
The chairman further said “to best of my knowledge you can not achieve 100 percent violent free election, but what usually justify such cancellation was general breakdown of law at the constituency.” Sequel to this development therefore, Alhaji Abbas disclosed that a protest letter had been lodged with INEC, while copies were made available to the Presidency and relevant security organs for action.
Kano APC, it is no more business as usual, this is not the time where your party scored 100% of the total votes with no rejected vote as was the last time of 2015 general election.this time every vote must be earned and must be voted by every voter!
ReplyDelete