The country’s major opposition party, the All Progressives Congress (APC) has given condition to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) before participating in the Taraba State governorship re-run election.
The party’s National Chairman, Chief John Odigie Oyegun, gave the condition while speaking with ThisDay correspondent on Thursday at the APC headquarters in Abuja.
The party demanded the total cancellation of the governorship election results in the 11 local government areas of the state affected by electoral irregularities.
Oyegun also demanded an overhaul of the security officials as well as staff of the INEC before proceeding with the election re-run.
The opposition party insisted that fresh election should not be conducted under the supervision of the current INEC officials in the state, because they have displayed enough evidence of bias and complicity in last Saturday, April 11, 2015 governorship election.
“INEC should set aside the declaration of inconclusive result for the state. The results of all the areas affected by irregularities in the 11 local government areas should be cancelled, after which a fresh collation should be done and a winner declared. Alternatively, the result of the entire state should be cancelled and a fresh election conducted. This is in view of the widespread irregularities in most of the local government areas of the state,” he said.
The party’s national chairman said the state’s governorship candidate, Senator Aisha Al’hassan, is very confident of victory if the re-run election is to be conducted in a free and fair atmosphere.
“I will say that appeal has been made to INEC that the kind of cancellation that are being undertaken are superficial whereas the transgression during the electoral process are of such magnitude that there are only two possibilities. Either the election in Wukari and Sardauna is totally discountenanced and fresh election held or the totality of the election in that state should be redone,” he said.
Meanwhile, Al’hassan while giving details of the alleged malpractices during the governorship election in the state said polls did not hold in accordance with INEC guidelines in many Wards cutting across many local government areas.
The affected local government areas were listed as Wukari, Kurmi, Yorro, Karim Lamido, Ardo Kola, Sardauna, Zing, Bali, Lau, Donga and Takum.
The APC guber candidate urged INEC to quickly commence an investigation into the conduct of the April 11 governorship election in the state to make sure the rights of the residents to choose their leaders are not truncated by conniving INEC officials, security and desperate PDP members.
Professor Muhammad Kariey, INEC returning officer for Taraba guber election, said there has to be a supplementary election because the total number of votes rejected and cancelled were more than the total vote with which PDP’s Darius Ishaku led the runner-up Aisha Al-Hassan of the APC.
In the results earlier announced, PDP polled 317,198 votes, while the APC scored 262,386, but the electoral umpire had already fixed the run off of the governorship elections for April 25, 2015.
Meanwhile, in synchronisation to the demands of the party in regards to Taraba State governorship re-run election, a chieftain of the All Progressive Congress (APC) in Adamawa State, Vice-President Atiku Abubakar had earlier given directive to the INEC on what should be done to the Resident Electoral Commissioner of Taraba State.
There were also reports that thousands of military troops were deployed in Wukari, Takum, Kurmi and Donga local councils areas where election violations were mostly perpetrated. It was also said that electoral officers in the aforementioned areas were heavily compromised.
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