Umar Sa’id Moh’d, Bauchi
Barely few hours after the conclusion of the primary election of some political parties in Bauchi State, some aggrieved members of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) in Bauchi State have called on the National working Committee of the party to order fresh primary elections in eleven state constituencies in the state.
The 43 aggrieved members while Speaking to journalists at NUJ Secretariat yesterday in Bauchi also expressed fear that the already elected local government delegates for the election are already being compromised, therefore, the National Working Committee should order a fresh election of the LGA delegates or allow for a Direct Primary election across the state.
The aggrieved contestants expressed dismay with the conduct of the primary election of the party, calling on the National Working Committee to revisit the issue.
“Before you this afternoon, are about 43 loyal party members of the APC who lawfully purchased nomination/expression of interest forms to contest for various state house of Assembly seats and our Party did not inform any aspirant that any of the serving members will be given an automatic ticket,
“We all obtained forms as required by the Constitution and followed all the instructions given by our leaders, we canvassed for support across our constituencies and patiently waited for the day of primary election,” he added.
According to spokesperson of the group, Alhaji Sale Umar Nabayi stated that the election was slated for last Thursday, were they sent their agents to the party secretariat, waited but sadly election materials were not distributed to the officials till dusk without any communication from the election panel.
“When they arrived late in the evening, they said that they could not distribute the materials that same Thursday, claiming that some of the constituencies in Bauchi State are far away from the Capital so they pleaded with us that everyone should reconvene on Friday at 7:am when the election materials would be distributed. We all left for our various destinations and returned on Friday morning”.
“On that Friday, we were surprised to hear from the Committee that all the state constituencies that have serving lawmakers have been given automatic tickets, therefore there won’t be an election in those areas”, he further stated.
He claimed that the officials said that they have received orders from the National Headquarters to give automatic tickets to all the serving state Assembly members; hence we expressed our anger to them that we are not in support of that arrangement. We insisted that elections must be held in all the state constituencies including those with serving members.
