By Umar Sani
Hours to polls, the All Progressives Congress, APC has accused the Bauchi State Independent Electoral Commission, BASIEC, and the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP of allegedly planning to rig the election in favor of the ruling PDP in the state.
During an emergency press conference in the early hours of Saturday, APC raised alarm that it received a report that both the government and its commission had scuttled the credibility of the exercise.
While reading the statement signed by the State Chairman of APC, the party the Legal Advisor, Barrister Rabiu Garba said “As at the moment of less than 12 hours before the commencement of the Saturday poll, we have observed that BASIEC has failed to provide adequate sensitive and non-sensitive election materials, including sufficient ballot papers and result sheets, at the designated voting centers across the state.
“As gathered from credible sources, we have reason to believe that BASIEC intends to announce election results while voting is in progress, which is unacceptable and a clear attempt to undermine the democratic process.
“Currently our party is unaware of the identities of the presiding officers, collation officers, and returning officers for the election, despite having served the commission with an official demand letter in that regard. This, in fact, raises serious questions about the transparency and credibility of tomorrow’s (Saturday) election process.”
Garba recalled that claimed that there has been constant scheming out of the APC in almost all the meetings with critical stakeholders held by the Commission concerning the election in question.
He said that the APC would not accept the outcome of any election that is marred by such irregularities and shady elections. APC called on the BASIEC to conduct a transparent, free, and fair election that reflects the will of the people of Bauchi State.
“However, we must condemn in totality, the cunning move made by the PDP government in Bauchi state to disenfranchise the people of Bauchi State by compromising the State Independent Electoral Commission, BASIEC security agencies, and ad-hoc electoral officers in all the polling units across the State. The planned rigging of the election was orchestrated as manifested by BASIEC,” APC said.
Punch correspondent reported that the press conference was attended by the Senator representing Bauchi South Senatorial District, Shehu Umar Buba, the Chairman of APC, Mohammed Hassan, and other top party stakeholders in the state.
