The People’s Democratic Party, PDP, has rejected the result of the Katsina State Local Government election announced by the Secretary of the State Electoral Commission, SIEC, Lawal Faskari, describing it as unacceptable.
The electoral body on Tuesday declared the All Progressive Congress, APC, winner of all the chairmanship and councillorship seats in the 31 local governments so far announced.
However, the PDP is alleging there were no elections held in nine councils — Kankara, Baure, Danmusa, Jibia, Rimi, Kafur, Bindawa, Ingawa, Musawa and many others.
The PDP acting chairman in the state, Sani Uli disclosed the party’s position at a briefing at their secretariat.
Uli alleged that the local government election held on April 11 in the state was fraught with various degrees of irregularities with the result announcement making a caricature of Nigeria’s democracy, noting several anomalies in the presentation of the result.
In his words: “In the first instance, the announcement carried the date March 11, 2022, implying that the results were compiled since March 11, 2022, or the announcement was not referring to this election.
“Whatever be the case, these results are totally unacceptable and rejected in their entity by the Peoples’ Democratic Party. These cannot be called election results.”
Uli also alleged that majority of the election materials were carted away from the local government headquarters of the SIEC in the LGs by government agents in connivance with APC members on the night of April 10, 2022.
Concerning the result announcement, he faulted the SIEC secretary for failing to mention figures, such as “total number of accredited voters, total votes cast, scores of candidates of each political party, invalid votes before declaring the candidate of the party with the highest number of votes as the winner in the presence of all parties representatives with the declaration of results sheets duly signed by party agents.”
As a result, Uli said the PDP had no other choice than to reject the exercise in its totality.
He said: “This is not an election because it has not met even the least standard of an election.
“The election can best be described as a charade, a farce, a nullity, and therefore unacceptable.”
He urged party members and the public to remain calm as all available avenues would be explored to redress this injustice within the confines of the law.
Speaking, on behalf of the state PDP’s governorship candidate in the 2023 election, the former party chairman in the state, Salisu Majigiri, expressed disappointment at the way and manner the election was conducted in the home state of President Buhari.
His words: “It was shameful that a state where Nigeria President is from cannot organise simple local government election.”
