Council Poll: Protests Trail Election Results

There Was No Election In Suleja-PDP Candidate
PROTESTS have continued to trail the January 16, 2016, Local Government Election in Niger State, where the All Progressives Congress (APC) swept the chairmanship seats for 25 councils and won a majority number of the councillorship positions.

At the initial stage, the Chairman of the Niger State Independent Electoral Commission (NSIEC), Alhaji

Abubakar, announced results of 24 council areas, withholding the result of Suleja council area, because of an alleged clash between supporters of the main opposition party in the state, the Peoples Democratic Election (PDP) and APC, a few days to the election.

Since the results were released, there have been accusation and counter accusations, between the ruling party and the opposition, especially the PDP. Their grouse is that the results did not reflect what happened at the polling units and wards collation centers.

As there was no pronouncement by the NSIEC chairman on Suleja council area, they did not anticipate foul play until the electoral umpire suddenly changed its decision and issued Certificate of Return to all the Chairmen-elect, including Suleja, where election was pronounced not to have taken place. The PDP is protesting what they described as injustice.

The Chairmanship candidate, Barrister Bala Maigaskiya, insisted, “there was no election as far as I am concerned. What they are doing is just mere propaganda.

Said he: “On the election day, all the election materials were released in the morning and all of a sudden the Returning Officer did not release result sheets to the polling units. When we discovered that, we raised an alarm and by that time they’ve already accredited some of the electorate. We told them that we agreed with the accreditation that had taken place, but that until they bring result sheets, nothing would happen. That was the genesis of the whole problem. Even in some of the polling units, no election materials were provided, meaning there was no election there.

“We insisted that without the result sheets we wont allow them to continue, they later gave the sheets to only two wards, out of the 10. When they realised that PDP was leading, they refused to allow other wards to have their result sheets and at the end, most units did not cast their votes, others insisted they’d not count their votes until they bring the sheet.”

Maigaskiya said based on their position, the electoral officials mandated them to come to the collation centre where things would be sorted out, but nobody was there till after 8pm. “We moved to the local government centre but everywhere was locked with high security personnel. How can they declare themselves winners in an election where there were no result sheets, an election that was not counted? This is to tell the whole world that there was no election in Suleja Local Government Area.”

He accused the ruling party of attacking PDP members, noting that despite the presence of the police during their stakeholders’ meeting last Sunday, APC thugs allegedly used all forms of weapons to vandalise vehicles and ran away.

“The case was reported to the police and nothing has been done. That is why they have been threatening our peace. They are threatening that they will kill every PDP member in Suleja in the presence of the police.”

When asked the party’s next move, he said “I am just a contestant, the party has its plans, if the party says we are going to Court, then we will take it in good faith.

The Guardian learnt that the APC-led administration was also accused of using the military to rig elections in three council areas-Agwara, Tafa and Shiroro. It was alleged that the returning officers of some councils were known blood relatives of the APC chairmanship candidates, who were hired to manipulate the results.
Efforts to speak with NSIEC chairman were unsuccessful.