Romanus Ugwu, Abuja
The All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) has rejected the results of the Zamfara State governorship and House of Assembly elections conducted last weekend, vowing to challenge its outcome at the Election Petition Tribunal.
The party’s governorship candidate, Sani Abdulahi Shinkafi, in a statement, in Abuja, yesterday, said the party, after due consultation and review of the results, in accordance with the directive of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), had rejected it in its entirety.
“After consultation with our party members and a review of the outcome of the governorship and state house of assembly elections conducted March 9, 2019, we reject the result of the elections held in Zamfara State.
“The result was not the true reflection of the votes cast. We, in APGA, reject the result in all its entirety, party agents in Bindin, Wonaka, Mada, Kware, Kurya, Dansadau, Cigama and all areas affected by the armed bandits activities across the 13 Local Government Areas of Zamfara State, as well as smart card readers were not used at all during the elections,” the statement read.
While accusing security agents and officials of INEC of collaborating with the candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) to manipulate the exercise, Shinkafi alleged that “the security agents, officials of the INEC and the State government’s vigilante group called ‘’YANSAKAI’’ collaborated to steal the mandate the Zamfara people gave to our party.
“Our party agents told us how security agents which comprised military and mobile policemen overpowered them in some areas to manipulate, allocate and alter the results, in connivance with INEC officials, to turndown the victory of our party in favour of the APC.
“The results were not the true reflection of the votes cast, and we’ve decided to challenge the results of the election at the election petition tribunal. We are also going to challenge non disqualification of APC from fielding candidates in the elections due to none conduct of their party primaries in line with the provision of Section 87 of the Electoral Act 2010 as Amended.
Shinka said: “We will approach the election petition tribunal on the basis of the irregularities noticed during the elections, and non disqualification of the APC governorship and State house of assembly candidates. Legally APC has no valid nominated list of candidates submitted to INEC by the national leadership of the party. As far we are concerned we did not contest any election with APC candidates.
The election was marred with massive irregularities, vote buying, multiple voting, multi ballot thumb printing, ballot boxes snatching, refusal of presiding officers across the 2,516 polling units to write results as announced and declared, Ward collation centres were deserted by the collation/returning officers of INEC, security agents were aiding and abetting INEC officials in rigging the election in favour of the APC, while the opposition parties were left helpless in the whole the exercise.”