You Are Product Rigged Election, Abba Tells Ganduje

 

The Kano State governorship candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Abba Kabir Yusuf, has expressed surprise over statements accredited to the state Governor, Abdullahi Ganduje, of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in an interview recently conducted on the rerun election in the state.

In a statement made available to journalists on Wednesday by the spokesperson to the PDP governorship candidate in the state, Sanusi Bature Dawakin-Tofa, he said: “For Ganduje to celebrate what happened on March 23, 2019, his conscience must have been on vacation. It is our prayer that he regains it quickly and apologises to the Kano people on his malicious actions that turned the state into anarchy through crass impurity.

"It was glaring to the local and foreign media, domestic and international observers as well as the public how Kano State was placed under siege by hired thugs from neighboring states of Zamfara, Katsina, Kaduna, Plateau, Bauchi and Niger Republic by Ganduje and his cohorts.

"The election was characterised by open vote buying, voter intimidation, harassment and flagrant abuse of human rights, killing and maiming of innocent citizens in connivance with the hoodlums who enjoy the full cover of the security agents.

"It was clear that voters were disenfranchised; sensitive materials were hijacked by APC stalwarts who were seen stuffing ballots boxes with already thumb-printed ballot papers in favour of the ruling APC. Results were fabricated with the full support of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) officials.

"Upon all the unfortunate trend of events that took place during the re-run, INEC went ahead to unlawfully declare the result in favour of Ganduje which threw the people of Kano State into a state of mourning for weeks.

"It is evident that INEC in Kano and the security apparatus have been compromised through inducement by the Ganduje’s administration. We have seen reports exposing speedy land allocation to some INEC officials. To a significant extent, Ganduje influenced the major decisions of the electoral body (INEC).

“I am still battling to recall which celebration Ganduje is referring to in his interview, is he referring to the huge amount of money spent on DJs to amplify the celebration of his purported victory?

“To us, democracy was massacred during the state supplementary election. There was no election conducted, it was nothing buy a sham which led to robbing the people’s mandate in a broad-day light approach."

Dawakin-Tofa also talked about the PDP resolve to reclaim what he described as their stolen mandate from Ganduje.

According to him, "In our mission to reclaim the stolen mandate, we have resolved to challenge the unlawful declaration of Ganduje by the so-called professors at INEC in the state; we have a very prosperous case to pursue at the Election Petition Tribunal, which has the potential to restore the public confidence of the judiciary in Nigeria."