By Fadhlillah Abdallah
A certain Coalition of APC Support Groups in Sokoto state, has demanded the national headquarters of the All Progressives Congress (APC), to cancel the governorship primaries held in the state recently.
The Chairman and Secretary, Isah Jabbi and Bashar Binji while addressing a press conference at the Press Centre on Tuesday, rejected the results which it claimed was marred with irregularities.
It also vowed to challenge the outcome of the primary election that produced former Deputy Governor, Ahmed Aliyu as the party’s candidate for the 2023 election in the state if the national headquarters failed to organise a fresh primary in the state.
“We have been compelled to address the press following the recent governorship primaries of the All Progressives Congress in Sokoto State which cannot be said to be credible and transparent.
“For as far as we are concerned, the process isn’t only a rape on democracy, but also a complete charade orchestrated by enemies of democracy to achieve their selfish goals in a desperate attempt to impose an unwanted candidate against the wishes of the popular masses.
“For record emphasis, we wish to categorically state that the primaries of Thursday, 26 May 2022, was from its onset a monumental manipulation by some party leaders in the state to favour the candidature of a certain aspirant by using personal security details and thugs loyal to a particular party leader to intimidate delegates in order to vote for their preferred aspirant, while delegates who appeared to be not dancing to their tune were chased and assaulted out of the venue and even the other three gubernatorial aspirants were only lucky to have escaped after being attacked by political thugs, to the adore of the state party leaders.
“The venue of the primaries was initially set to frustrate the comfort of delegates in order to give way for a corrupt exercise. The state APC secretariat was deliberately fixed for the election process quite knowing the fact that it lacks space and security for the conduct of a successful election, and very unsuitable for such activity.
“Our suspicions were later confirmed when officials conducting the election intentionally switched off power while delegates were casting votes in the middle of the night and left the venue in total darkness for very long period of time.
“We are calling on the APC National Chairman, the APC National Working Committee, and all relevant authorities concern to declare the APC gubernatorial Primaries held in Sokoto as illegal, null and void, and ensure justice comes into play in order to avoid the possibilities of repeating the mistake of 2019,” the group demanded,” the press statement reads.
