BYE-ELECTION: APC urges police investigation of firearms, as PDP accuses party of using military to harass voters

By IBRAHIM KANOMA, Gusau

The Nigerian Police Force in Zamfara State has been urged to investigate the source of firearms given to political thugs during the last Saturday’s election in the state.

Making this call was the State Publicity Secretary of All Progress Congress (APC), Mallam Yusuf Idris Gusau, while reacting to Peoples Democratic Party (PDP)’s allegations that the APC used the military to harass and intimidate voters during the exercise in Kaura Namoda Local Government Area.

He said political thugs have no constitutional right to carry arms and wonder why and how they acquired those arms they paraded during the bye-election.

He urged security agencies, particularly the police, to investigate and prosecute those found to be culpable for illegally carrying arms during the election.

According to the APC’s scribe, despite the security announcement and warning against involvement of CPG and CJTF on election duty, the state government ignored the warning and deployed them in large numbers and stationed them in all the six wards armed with sophisticated weapons just to rig the election in their favour, allegedly.

But, he said, “the gallant security agencies prevented them, making the ridiculous PDP to seek public sympathy now.”

Yusuf further said, “the security agencies in the state have taken proactive measures against the sinister move of the Zamfara State PDP to use the CPG (Askarawa), and CJTF to destroy the bye-election as they feared APC will beat them hands down.”

“When the PDP and its destructive agents noticed that the election outcome from some polling units were not in their favour, they started executing their earlier evil machination to destroy the election that was going peacefully in many polling units and the security on election duty resisted.

“The PDP thugs were led by two local government chairmen at Polling Units 013 and Polling unit 002 at Kasuwa Daji and destroyed the election materials breaking the ballot box, tearing all the ballot papers and carting away VBas machine, we have the video clips and still pictures at our disposal”, he said

According to him, the PDP chairman led some thugs at Sakajiki in order, he claimed, to disrupt the election but the security agents at the collation centre denied him access and later turned him back, saying video to that effect had also gone viral on the 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 was destroyed, he lamented

He said APC is surprised that the PDP has the audacity to show their arrogant faces before the world and say the election was manipulated, having failed and officially denied the use of state machinery to rig the election

Yusuf further said 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.

They also attempted to drag the Nigerian military into partisan politics, which we believe is reckless and dangerous. The Nigerian military have sacrificed their lives daily to protect communities from bandits. For PDP to compare the fight

The call was made by the publicity secretary of the All Progress Congress Malam Yusuf Idris Gusau while reacting to Peoples democratic party’s allegations that the APC uses the military to harass and intimidates voters during the last Saturday bye election in Kaura Namoda local government .

He said political thugs have no constitutional right to carry arms and wonder why and how they acquired those arms they paraded during the bye election.

He urged the security agencies particularly the police to investigate and prosecute them for illegally carrying arms during election.He said despite the security announcement and warning on the ban on CPG and CJTF on election duty the government ignored and deployed them in large numbers and stationed them in all the six wards armed with sophisticated weapons just to rig the election in their favour but the gallant security agencies prevented them, making the ridiculous PDP to seek public sympathy now.

Yusuf further said, the security agencies in the state have taken proactive measures against the sinister move of the Zamfara State PDP to use the CPG (Askarawa), and CJTF to destroy the bye-election as they feared APC will beat them hands down.

He said when the PDP and its destructive agents noticed that the election outcome from some polling units were not in their favour, they started executing their earlier evil machination to destroy the election that was going peacefully in many polling units and the security on election duty resisted.

The PDP thugs were led by two local government chairmen at Polling Units 013 and Polling unit 002 at Kasuwa Daji and destroyed the election materials breaking the ballot box, tearing all the ballot papers and carting away VBas machine, we have the video clips and still pictures at our disposal, he said

The PDP Chairman led some thugs at Sakajiki in order to disrupt the election but the security agents at that collation centre denied him access and later turned him back, this video has also gone viral on the 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 was destroyed”, he lamented

In the meantime, Idris Yusuf Gusau noted that PDP text has exposed their inability to accept defeat and are now looking for excuses having been defeated at the poll.