The APC in Kaduna State has alleged that there is a plot by the PDP to manipulate election results in the Zone 1 senatorial area of the state in the on-going governorship and House of Assembly elections. Several party officials from the area made this known in the course of interviews in the early hours of Saturday. Zone 1 has eight local government areas including Zaria, Sabogari, Kudan, Kubau, Kajuru, Lere, Makarfi and Ikara, and these have been hotbeds of intrigue considering that many top politicians from the state are from there. One of such is the governorship candidate of the APC in the state, Mallam Nasir El-Rufai. Others are the state governor, Alhaji Ramalan Yero, the serving senator, Ahmed Makarfi, who lost his seat in the March 28 election to another highly popular former governorship candidate, Suleiman Hunkuyi, as well as Vice-President Namadi Sambo.
While commenting on the state of preparedness and conduct of the election earlier, the APC security Coordinator for Makarfi local government area, Abubakar Musa, said there had been a few cases of attempt to cause chaos and act contrary to known election rulers, all geared towards ensuring that the will of the people at the poll was thwarted. “PDP gave some people observer T-shirts and they photocopied tags for their own people, some of whom we found to be sharing money at a polling unit. But my officials there had informed these people that they should desist and that if they wanted to share money they should leave the area,” Musa said, adding that the polling unit in question was near one “Senator Zingi’s polling area and another was at a polling unit in Government Secondary School. But the situation has been calmed down. I have one of the photocopies of the observer tags seized from these people as evidence. If the same illegality is repeated in the area we will invite soldiers and the police to stop it, although at the moment police officers have warned those involved.”
The Coordinator also added that he had information that money was being shared by PDP to some election officials. “We are told that most of the INEC officials have been given money but it is not something I have seen,” Musa stated. “Anyway we are putting our house in order to ensure that our agents and other observers who are around pay close attention to what is going on; and if there is anything, they call me and I go in there to check immediately.”
Musa did not think any election official would be able to perpetrate any illegality in the election process because according to him, the use of card reader and the vigilance of the APC party agents were enough deterrent. “If there is collusion, I don’t think they can execute their plan here because we are using the card reader,” he said, affirming that as at 10am there had been no problem in the LGA apart from the two areas he had mentioned where PDP wanted to cause problem.
Equally, he did not think it would be possible to write fake results at the end of the election process. According to Musa, “As for rewriting of result, we are going to be with them at the polling units. In each unit I know what is going on. I know the kind of agents we have posted there. If anything is written as result and it is contrary to the figures I have on my paper I know something is wrong. Then I will be able to take action against anyone involved. But my men are very vigilant. They have been working closely with INEC officials to observe the situation and we don’t give any room for any trick to be played by all those involved in the process.”
While he admitted to the possible influence of a political figure such as Senator Ahmed Makarfi in the LGA, Musa was emphatic that no politician of whatever caliber would be allowed to manipulate the wishes of the people to his own advantage. Asked if he thought the reported cases of effort to cause confusion in some areas were traceable to influential politicians, Musa said, “That’s what we are seeing because we have gone to two areas where we find people sharing morning. We don’t know whether the money is from Makarfi or anyone linked to him. But they can share as much money as they wish; what we know is that we won’t allow them to do anything contrary to what the rules say. If anything goes wrong we will take it up from there and make sure it is stopped. But at the moment, everything is under control.”
The APC Chairman in Kauru LGA was of the same view, saying the report reaching him in the early parts of the day was that all was going fine. “The process has gone on fine. There is no problem,” he said. In Lere LGA, Sanusi Suswam, Publicity Secretary of the Local Campaign Team for the El-Rufai Campaign Organization said, “Most of the election materials had left the centre between 6:30 and 7:30am, and accreditation had started at 8am. From the information we are gathering across the LGA, it seems as if all materials reached the various polling units safely,” Suswam said, adding however that there were a few cases of places where card readers developed problems but INEC officials were attending to such.
Suswam stated he had information that attempt would be made by PDP to give money to election officials. “The information reaching us since yesterday is that PDP is preparing to give a lot of money to INEC so that they can engage in malpractices in this area. Nevertheless, our people are vigilant because we intend to make sure that we protect our votes in all the polling units in Lere LGA. In the ward where I am working now, Saminaka, there has been no problem. All the information that I gather from other wards indicates the process has been going on fine so far,” Suswam said, adding that all known plans of the PDP to cheat had only served to make the people come out and vote. “This only gingers our people to come out and vote them out of office. We are expecting a nice outcome in the governorship and House of Assembly elections with very high number of votes cast for our candidates,” he added.
Speaking in the same vein, the Zone 1 APC Vice-Chairman, Rilwan Abubakar, said there was no negative incident of consequence to report from the zone as at 10am except for some card readers that seemed to have developed problems in some polling units. “So far the accreditation is taking place. We experience a bit of problem with our card readers in some polling stations; this is an issue at a time when INEC says there will be no use of incidental forms. So at the moment we are trying to see that we overcome the problem of the card reader,” Abubakar said. He however stated that this problem was not widely experienced. “It is not so widely spread in polling units across the zone. INEC officials are trying their best to make sure they put everything in order. We have this problem in about three polling units in Zaria LGA and a few cases in Kubau and Ikara LGA.”
As for the availability of other election materials however, Abubakar said there were no problems across the zone.
