Gov Sule Lauds Nasarawa North By-election As Maku Kicks

The Nasarawa North Senatorial District by-election held yesterday attracted mixed verdicts from top political actors, as Governor Abdullahi Sule described the poll as the most orderly in recent years while former information minister, Labaran Maku, alleged widespread BVAS malfunctions and alleged malpractices.

Governor Sule, who voted at Polling Unit 002, Gudi Motor Park alongside his wives, Hajiya Silifat Abdullahi Sule and Hajiya Farida Abdullahi Sule, said the exercise was seamless.

“As a registered voter, I have just exercised my right. For me, this is the smoothest it has ever been,” Sule told newsmen, “From BIVAS accreditation to casting my ballot, it took just three to five minutes. Historically, this is the fastest I’ve seen.”

On speculations about his 2027 senatorial ambition, the governor dismissed the by-election as a personal test. “I don’t see it as a litmus test for me. If you want to put it that way, it is a litmus test for the All Progressives Congress (APC),” he said.

“It is an opportunity for the people of Nasarawa North to say thank you to APC. By the grace of God, we are going to see a ‘thank you’ result.”

However, Labaran Maku, who voted at his Wakama ward polling unit, raised concerns over the process.

He said his accreditation was smooth but many voters were stranded.

“Quite a number of people, the BVAS could not capture their fingerprint, and so they’ve been waiting there since morning,” Maku said.

He urged INEC to activate facial recognition, stressing that voter cards and the register contain both fingerprints and faces. He reported similar hitches at Wamba Central andWamba Clinic.

“We had many cases of malfunctioning BVAS. They had to send people to look for those who can repair them,” he said, describing the scale of failures as “strange” for a single-zone election.

Maku further alleged that some BVAS devices ran out of data after only 10 voters. “At my own polling unit, we had to volunteer to give data to the INEC staff,” he stated. “These are small things that happen to make us not look serious as a people.”

He also cited reports of alleged multiple thumbprinting of ballot papers in Alushi and Wacho, which he said were captured on camera.

While noting that voting was peaceful in many areas, Maku warned that collation remained the flashpoint. “It is when results are being collated that people introduce violence when they see they are not winning,” he said, urging security agencies to safeguard the movement of results from polling units to the senatorial collation center.

The former minister decried “win-at-all-costs” politics, insisting that incumbents should win based on performance.

“For an incumbent government, it is your policies and development that deliver you. It’s not your officials,” he said.

He also faulted the judiciary’s handling of election petitions. “The onus of proving rigging lies on you, who was rigged out. The electoral law is infused with technical bottlenecks,” he said, referencing the last governorship poll where he claimed IReV showed a clear winner but the courts dismissed the case on technical grounds.

“It’s not about me accepting results. It’s the process that people are concerned about,” Maku added. “This is not about us winning. It’s about the country winning. It’s about the process winning.”

INEC had yet to issue an official statement on the reported BVAS challenges or the alleged malpractices as of press time. Collation of results was expected to commence last night.

The by- election was conducted to fill the Nasarawa North Senate seat made vacant following the death of its earlier occupant, Senator Godiya Akwashiki.