One of the defeated aspirants for Gombe State House of Assembly seat in Gombe State at the recently-conducted Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) primary election has alleged irregularities perpetrated at the election.
Abubakar Muhammad Gidado, who aspired to be the candidate for the Bajoga Ward seat, Gombe, at the state legislature at the 2023 general elections, has forwarded his complaint to the National Primary Elections Appeal Committee of the party through his solicitors, A Dauda & Co of Bin Dawood Chambers.
Gidado recalled that during the primary election “we were notified by the electoral officers that only Ten (10) delegates would vote, together with one (1) national delegate making it eleven (11) people to vote in total.”
He, however, alleged: “After casting the votes, we realized that it was twelve (12) that were casted instead of eleven (11),” continuing,
“I got five (5) votes, but one(1) of the votes was invalidated based on the objection of a near relative of the alleged winner.”
Gidado said the electoral committee invalidated the vote, which casted in his favour “based on the reason that my full name was not written on it. It was written “Abubakar Muhammad” instead of “Abubakar Muhammad Gidado”.
He recalled: “This (objection) was moved by the senior brother of the so called winner named “Ali kawuwa” who is the party Chairman of Bajoga ward and he is not an electoral officer neither an agent of any of the contestants.”
However, Gidado recalled further, “after the vote casting I got five (5) votes including the purported invalid Vote.”
He argued that even if the so called winner got Six(6) votes and one other contestant got one (1) vote while the other contestants got zero(0) votes, the total number of votes casted exceeded the legitimate number of votes validly identified before the votes casting.
He appealed to the general public and his ‘teaming’ supporters to “look into the matter and advise us on the way forward because our candidature is not our personal candidature but rather the general public interest.”
Just to be updated