From Salisu Zakari Maradun, Gusau The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Zamfara chapter, has condemned in strong terms the way and manner the recent state assembly bye-election was conducted, describing it as conspiracy between the opposition APC and security agents.
Alhaji Jamilu Magayaki Kaura, the state chairman of the party made this known to newsmen in his office, in Gusau, capital of the state 48 hours after the election.
Kaura accused the APC of conniving with security operatives, including the military to cause chaos in order to prevent the voters from exercising their civic right at the polls.
According to him, they have many evidence that the APC hired political thugs to invade all the polling units, especially where they knew they will not win the election if properly and judiciously conducted.
The chairman also disclosed that for the opposition APC to get what it wanted, it went to the extent of employing the services of the military personnel to take part in the election processes thereby scaring the electorate.
”We are therefore not satisfied with this unhealthy development. I am surprised that the military men who are here to bring peace, who are here to specifically fight bandits but abandoned their legitimate job and went for only the protection of another group contrary to their job”, the chairman revealed.
Meanwhile, the opposition APC, through its spokesperson, Yusuf Idris Gusau, debunked the allegation levelled against their party APC, saying that the ruling party had nothing to say with regard to the election, adding that, “the election in question was witnessed by everybody in the state, and people saw all what transpired in all those polling units. It was the PDP that created all the problems by stationing their thugs in the area even by some days before the commencement of the election”.
The APC scribe also revealed that the election started peacefully, but when it dawned on the PDP that it will lose, their leaders, including the chairman, resorted to using violence and began to scare people, particularly women who were already on the queue.
“A group of political thugs who were hired by the PDP to local government chairman, as well as that in Birnin Magaji, carrying dangerous weapons in their hands, violently entered into the offices where both the INEC and election officials were seated and destroyed a number of boxes. They also used the Community Protection Guard (CPG) personnels to take part in the election who were not supposed to appear there, because we all knew that the CPG were employed to purposely be posted to the villages where there was no security to protect the people of such areas, but to our dismay, these CPG were seen at every polling unit strongly armed to scare people.
