Reactions have begun to trail the recently conducted All Progressives Congress (APC) gubernatorial primary election held in Sokoto State, which produced Alhaji Ahmed Aliyu, as the party flag bearer for the 2023 general elections.
A group, Coalition of APC Support Groups in the state, while expressing their disagreement with the outcome of the exercise, called for the cancellation of the primary election, in the interest of justice and fair play.
The coalition chairman and secretary, Mallam Isa Jabi and Bashar Binji respectively, at a press conference stated that, the process isn’t only a rape on democracy, but also a complete charade orchestrated by enemies of democracy to achieve their selfish goals in a desperate attempt to impose an unwanted candidate against the wishes of the popular masses.
They posited that, “For record emphasis, the primaries of Thursday, 26 May 2022, was from it onset a monumental manipulation by some party leaders in the state to favor the candidature of a certain aspirant by using personal security details and thugs loyal to a particular party leader to intimidate delegates in order to vote for their preferred aspirant, while delegates who appeared to be not dancing to their tune were chased and assaulted out of the venue and even the other three Gubernatorial aspirants were only lucky to have escaped after being attacked by political thugs, to the adore of the state party leaders.
“The venue of the primaries was initially set to frustrate the comfort of delegates in order to give way for a corrupt exercise. The state APC secretariat was deliberately fixed for the election process quite knowing the fact that it lacks space and security for the conduct of a successful election, and very unsuitable for such activity.
“Our suspicions were later confirmed when officials conducting the election intentionally switched off power while delegates were casting votes in the middle of the night and left the venue in total darkness for very long period of time.
“In another brazen violation of the APC constitution and the electoral act, members of the committee saddled with responsibilities of accreditating delegates were substituted overnight, bringing in children and friends of the state party leader to fill their spots. This is yet another deceitful move to ensure the emergence of a certain aspirant.
“Also during the exercise, delegates were openly prevented from voting themselves and instead, some selected individuals in the name of agents were assigned to vote on behalf of the delegates while ballot boxes were deliberately placed in front of the state party leader in a dubious attempt to identify delegates who refuse to vote for their anointed candidate.”
Based on the aforementioned, the APC Support Groups then called on the party National Working Committee to cancel the exercise and declare the APC Gubernatorial Primaries held in Sokoto as illegal, null and void, to avoid the possibilities of repeating the mistake of 2019.
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