By: John Bassey, Zamfara
Zamfara state chapter of the All Progressive Congress, APC, has refuted the claims made by the People Democratic Party, PDP, that the military aided APC in Kaura Namoda South to manipulate the bye-election process, describing it as a deliberate attempt to cover up their defeat during the exercise.
This was stated by Malam Yusuf Idris Gusau, the Zamfara state APC publicity secretary, while addressing journalists in his office on Monday in Gusau, the state capital.
In his address, he maintained that the All Progressives Congress, APC, Zamfara State, has, however, come across a press conference text written by the Zamfara PDP chapter in a desperate attempt to cover up their defeat in the Kaura Namoda South bye-election.
Instead of accepting the will of the people, the PDP has resorted to fabricating lies against security agencies, the All Progressives Congress (APC), and even the Nigerian military.
In their deceitful text, they alleged that the military was “deployed to intimidate voters” which is baseless and fabricated lies just to smear the image of our Security personnel who were stationed at polling units to prevent all kinds of election malpractice such as ballot snatching and destruction of election materials through violence especially as planned by the PDP which is notoriously known for in Zamfara elections.
The claim that the army was “inside polling centres” lacks proof and is a deliberate distortion of reality, and a deliberate attempt to drag the Nigerian military into partisan politics, which we believe is reckless and dangerous.
The Nigerian military has sacrificed its lives daily to protect communities from bandits. For the PDP to compare the fight against banditry with election security is irresponsible, callous, and an insult to our gallant troops who risk their lives for Nigeria’s unity.
The PDP text has exposed its inability to accept defeat and is now looking for excuses, having been defeated at the polls.
What we expected from them is evidence to prove their claims, just as we have in our possession, videos and still pictures; they should present these, including those they said were beaten before the INEC or the election petition tribunal, instead of issuing emotional statements to mislead the public.
Their naive narrative that “APC has lost support in Zamfara and beyond” collapsed when compared with reality; the people of Kaura Namoda South came out en masse and voted for APC while rejecting the PDP, proving that Governor Dauda Lawal’s administration is already losing touch with the people.
PDP should be reminded that democracy is about the ballot, not propaganda. Instead of crying wolf and attacking institutions, they should focus on delivering good governance in Zamfara.
The people have spoken through their votes and will do the same again in future elections, which come in 2027, and no amount of press conferences can change the outcome of the election.
AlhamduLillah, the security agencies in the state have taken proactive measures against the sinister move of the Zamfara State PDP to use the Community Protection Guard, CPG (Askarawa), and Community Joint Taskforce, CJTF, to destroy the bye-election as they feared APC would beat them hands down.
Despite the security announcement on the ban on CPG and CJTF on election duty, the PDP ignored and deployed them in large numbers and stationed them in all six wards armed with sophisticated weapons just to rig the election in their favour, but our gallant security agencies prevented them, making the ridiculous PDP now seek public sympathy.
We are still urging the police to investigate the source of firearms given to the thugs ahead of last Saturday’s election in the state.
Even members of the CPG who sacrificed their lives daily in the protection of lives and properties of the common man in the state are not taken care of by the PDP led government that has consistently refused to take care of the families of those who died in the line of duty, instead, the government is now sending them on election field o kill innocent souls in order to manipulate votes.
When PDP and its destructive agents noticed that the etocome from some polling units was not in their favour, they started executing their earlier evil machinations to destroy the election that was going peacefully in many polling units, and the security on election duty resisted.
Gentlemen of the press, most of you were with us when PDP thugs were led by two local government chairmen at Polling Units 013 and Polling unit 002 at Kasuwar ji and destroyed the election materials breaking the ballot box, tearing, all the ballot papers and carting away BVAS machine, we have the video clips, and still pictures at our disposal.
Likewise, the PDP Chairman led some thugs at Sakajiki. This is to disrupt the election, but security agents at that collation centre denied him access and later turned him back. This video has also gone viral on social media.
The same PDP chairman led thugs to disrupt elections in the Tukasu Polling unit where INEC officials were beaten and all the election material were destroyed.
The APC is surprised that the PDP has the audacity to show their arrogant faces before the worldBefore the election they dared to fail and officially denied the use of state machinery to rig the election
Prior to the election, we also saw a member of the national assembly on the campaign at Zorori River calling on the PDP members to kill APC members. The video is still trending. Which is inhuman and barbaric.
It could be recalled that APC appealed to conventional security agencies in the state through your recall, in addition to formal complaints to the security, not to allow the state government to use members of the askaracomplaintshugs and vagabonds during the election, which severely affected their crooked plans.
They quickly changed gear by using the ADC and CSO to the governor to lead teams in destroying election materials and chasing away innocent voters. The video clips of these claims are there to buttress what we are saying as against the flimsy excuse shamefully presented by PDP state Chairman.
We commend all organs of conventional security in the state for denying the thugs the chance to scuttle the exercise, and we encourage them to remain resolute in all future elections, as it is only by doing so that we can have a credible election.
We call on the security agencies to sustain the tempo so that we can now build more confidence in the minds of many citizens.
APC will continue to be law abiding and defender of democratic values at all times.