By Tony Icheku, in Jalingo
The Taraba State government has imposed a dusk- to- dawn curfew on Jalingo beginning Sunday evening.This development came on the heels of the rejection of the gubernatorial election result by All Progressives Congress,APC candidate ,Senator Aisha Alhassan and the tension which enveloped the state capital.
Earlier in her reaction to the result of the Taraba governorship election ,Senator Aisha popularly called Mama Taraba declared that the peoples mandate entrusted to her has been stolen, and she will do everything legally possible to regain it.
The Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC had declared Peoples Democratic Party, PDP candidate, Mr. Darius Ishaku winner with 329,318 votes while Aisha polled 275,984 votes.
Aisha who addressed a press conference immediately the result of the governorship supplementary election which held on Saturday, April 25 was merged with the figures of the April 11 governorship elections and the final figures announced stated that “the combined governorship elections in Taraba State was characterised by violence, massive rigging, ballot snatching and abuse of the card readers in substantial parts of the State by the PDP and their allies”.
She described as unacceptable, the results collated from Wukari, Donga, Takum, Sarduana, Zing, Yorro. Kurmi Local Government Areas, LGAs, and some parts of Ussa, Karim Lamido, Ardo Kola and Lau LGAs, as they did not reflect the true results of the elections held in those places.
“in all those areas listed above, our agents were shot at, beaten up, intimidated and chased away from voting centres, while voting took place in residences of PDP stakeholders and government functionaries” she argued.
The APC candidate declared that she has rejected the results as announced by INEC, and added that she shall be heading to the Governorship election tribunal to seek redress and reclaim the mandate entrusted on her by the people of Taraba. “the mandate is sacred and I shall not relent in seeking to reclaim it”, she affirmed.
Earlier, the APC governorship candidate explained that immediately after the April 11 election, the APC National leadership and herself expressed rejection of results from the disputed LGAs and called for either their cancellation and for a re-run or a total cancellation of the exercise in the State, but the INEC failed to act on their petition.
