The immediate past Minister of Information, Mr. Labaran Maku, has called on the national leadership of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, to cancel the governorship primary election in Nasarawa State due to alleged irregularities.
Mr. Maku’s call was contained in a statement issued in Abuja on Tuesday by the Director of Publicity of his Campaign Organisation, Zakari Edege.
“The PDP in Nasarawa state had written to the headquarters on Nov. 28, to protest against the sudden change of delegates’ lists from Keana, Obi, Lafia, Akwanga, and Nasarawa Eggon local governments”, he said.
“The Chairman of the Electoral Panel, Sen. Adolphus Wabara, following the protest, insisted that he had instructions from the national secretariat to use the altered delegates list for the primaries”.
The ex-minister said he “wondered why there were separate delegates’ lists for the conduct of State and National Assembly primaries and the governorship primary”.
He also alleged that the conduct of the primary election did not conform to the established guidelines as the number of ballot papers counted at the end of the exercise was greater than the number of delegates in Nasarawa state.
Mr. Maku complained that threat and coercion were used to prevent delegates from freely expressing their choice adding that voting commenced late and went into the night thereby exposing delegates to danger.
“It is on this premise that I urge you most respectfully to use your good and exalted office to intervene by cancelling the gubernatorial primary election held in Nasarawa state”, Mr. Maku said. “I also urge you to conduct another primary election so as to ensure that a free and fair election is conducted in the state”.
You may recall that the PDP governorship primaries in Nasarawa, which held last week Monday, was won by Alhaji Yusuf Agabi, with 241 votes. Maku and former Governor Aliyu Doma polled 160 and 129 votes to place first and second runner-ups respectively.
The rest, Sen. Solomon Ewuga got 31 votes; former deputy governor Michael Abdul, 28 votes; incumbent deputy governor, Dameshi Luka, 12 votes; while Yakubu Bala and Chris Mamman polled 4 and 1 votes respectively. The eighth aspirant, Musa Hussaini, had withdrawn from the contest shortly before the exercise went underway.
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