Following the controversy caused by the inconclusive governorship election in Taraba State, the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the country’s main opposition party, the All Progressive Congress (APC) have engaged in war of words.
Taraba State Acting Governor, Abubakar Danladi
The state chapter of the PDP through the Commissioner for Information and Strategy, Emmanuel Bello, on Thursday issued a statement in a reaction to the allegation against the acting governor, Abubakar Danladi.
He said the APC is only showing desperation in the face of obvious defeat by the PDP in last Saturday, April 11, 2015 election.
Bello accused the leadership of the APC of instigating the cancellation of many of the election results with the hope of helping its candidate to victory.
“The APC is only being jittery and desperate, because it knows that it can’t win this election in a predominantly PDP state like Taraba. Right now, all the senatorial seats were won by the PDP. Most of the House of Assembly seats were won by the PDP. The main worry of the APC now is that after instigating INEC to cancel many of the elections, the PDP candidate, Darius Ishaku, is still leading with 54, 812 votes. They know that there is no way they can win with this sort of margin. So they want to cause confusion using any means. They were the ones who urged INEC to do a re-run. We initially didn’t like this because Ishaku had won even after all the cancellations. But as law abiding people, we finally agreed to have the re-run. In fact, our people are currently working and getting ready for a re-run while the APC is showing signs of fears again. We are ever ready for elections because the people prefer us. If you have 100 re runs, Ishaku would still win. Everyone in the state knows this,” he said.
In a related development, the senator representing Taraba South in the National Assembly, Senator Emmanuel Bwacha, has called for the removal of Prof. Mohammed Kyari as the returning officer for the state’s governorship run-run election.
Bwacha, who made the call on Thursday while addressing newsmen in Jalingo, the state capital, posited that Kyari’s handling of the state’s gube poll which ended inconclusive is capable of tarnishing the integrity of the elections conducted by Prof. Attahiru Jega-led INEC.
The returning senator also accused Prof. kyari of being partisan and lacking integrity, adding that his action led to the present stalemate and post-election violence that rocked the state where several people lost their lives and properties.
Bwacha stated that Kyari as the returning officer of the state has no power by law to cancel the results of an entire local government made up of 165 polling units because there were problems in 5 polling units insisting that the action of the returning officer is a flagrant abuse of the electoral process.
He further reiterated that Prof Kyari exhibited his partisanship by cancelling results in areas where PDP won but left the results of areas where APC won intact, even when there were glaring cases of electoral irregularities.
“In Donga local government, INEC said they had issues in five polling units and they cancelled the entire result in the local government. Now, in Bali local government, there were issues in more than 20 polling units and yet, they didn’t cancel the result in the local government because APC won,”Bwacha said.
Bwacha, who is the Chairman, Senate Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development also called for the removal of the returning officer, Prof. Kyari.
He insisted that Kyari partisanship exhibition has made him unfit to conduct the run-off election fixed for April 25, and went ahead to expressed optimism that the PDP will win the run-off election.
“It is not that we are afraid of a run-off election. Our worry is the flagrant abuse of the process. Even if they conduct elections 10 times, the people who voted for the PDP will not change their conviction. We are worried that the state’s returning officer’s action is capable of casting doubts on the hard-earned integrity of Prof Jega and the entire electoral process,” he said.
The INEC Returning Officer, Prof. Mohammed Kyari, had on Monday April 13 declared the Taraba state gubernatorial poll inconclusive.
The violence that accompanied the governorship election result announcement made the state acting governor Alhaji Sani Abubakar Danladi, to declared a curfew from 7pm to 6am in the state.
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