How Compromised INEC Officials Conspired with Police to Manipulate Nangere/Potiskum Reps Election Result in Favour of APC
By our reporter
Shock and consternation have continued to pervade Nangere/Potiskum Federal Constituency, Yobe State, following the brazen intimidation by security agents and barefaced manipulation of electoral results by some compromised INEC officials to favor undeserving candidates.
In a keenly contested Federal House of Representatives election in which the PDP candidate, Engr Abubakar Adamu (CARGO), was poised to trounce his closest rival, Hajiua Fatima Talba of the APC, the audacious underhand activities of security officers and electoral officials were all it took to derail the will of the people.
It was an open secret in the run up to the election that Potiskum Local Government and environ were PDP strongholds.
In order to stop an imminent landslide victory of the opposition PDP and its popular candidate for the House of Reps election, the ruling party in the state in conjunction with the Deputy Governor and his cronies allegedly became desperate and sought extra-legal means of upturning the result of the election in favor of their candidate.
Litany of Infractions
The first action the ruling party in state took was to influence the disruption of security arrangements placed in the federal constituency. They promptly dispatched a compromised Deputy Police Commissioner of Police (name withheld) to displace a sitting Area Commander who was conscientiously carrying out his job of securing the polls.
According to eyewitnesses, upon arrival with full compliments of a contingent of Mobile Police officers he came with, the Deputy Commissioner of Police (name withheld), proceeded to upturn everything in a gestapo-like manner and barked orders at the electoral officers. He threatened the returning officer that he will eliminate if he failed to carry out his directives.
He forced the Returning Officer in the constituency, a Professor, to announced an altered and doctored result sheet with bloated figures for the APC candidate from Ngojin Alaraba ward, under duress, three days after they carted away the result to an unknown destination before it was returned and announced at the collation center, which are significant enough to influence the outcome of the election.
He made him announce a doctored and altered result while he knew that the result was carted away by the Returning Officer and returned after three.
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It was also reported that in order to effectively carry out his less than noble intention, the Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC) drafted one of his unqualified acolytes to superintend over the ward election as the Electoral Officer. Ahmed Waziri, the fellow he brought from Bauchi to do his bidding is a grade level 12 officer with no previous experience as electoral officer (as against the electoral act that stipulates that the Electoral Officer must be an officer from grade level 14 and above). Of course there were many qualified officers that could have been assigned to handle the job, but because the REC was clearly acting the script of the Governor, he opted to use his trusted hand for the planned electoral heist.
From the account of eye witnesses, the results of the polls in most of the wards were carefully collated and everybody (party agents) were given a copy of the collated result. However, before transmitting the result, INEC, through the compromised EO, made away with the result and later returned with an altered result. Of course it was only the INEC’s copy that had the alteration, meaning that the result was tinkered with by the I INEC office.
It was this unqualified and compromised EO, acting out the script of the REC who was also doing the Deputy Governor’s bidding, that misled the Returning Officer, a Professor, that he was in possession of the polling unit results while there was a contradictory video recording of him claiming they are not in possession of any result.
In the video recording of him after he resurfaced with a doctored result, the Returning Officer for Ngojin Alaraba, Adamu Ibrahim, told a cock and bull story of he was forced into a vehicle and was kidnapped. Of course he presented an altered and doctored result sheet with bloated figures for the APC candidate. Shockingly the Electoral Officer still accepted the result!
In more than 16 results sheets sighted by this reporter, unimaginable alteration of results, all of them tinkered in favor of the APC candidate, were noticed.
These and many more manipulations and re all clear infractions and breaches of the extant guidelines and provisions of the Electoral Act as witnessed by our sources.
Many Questions
The questions on the leaps of traumatized people of Nangere/Potiskum Federal constituency whose mandate has been so brazenly stolen by the rogue police officers and compromised INEC officials are: What was the reason behind the deployment of Deputy Commissioner of Police to displace an Area Commander in a place where there was no record or incident of grave insecurity beyond the capacity of the Area Commander? Why was the Deputy Commissioner of Police acting like an interested party in the election? Why did he force the Returning Officer to announce results when others wards are still being awaited?
Why did the INEC go ahead to announce the integrity-challenged results when there are clear cases of unresolved electoral infractions that attended the polls?
Why did the INEC not cancel or withhold a result of a particular area or polling unit where there is substantial threat to the integrity of that result as stipulated in the Electoral Act? Is it not also stated in the Electoral Act that if the canceled or withheld result did not make any significant impact on the overall results that the final result can be announced?
The Simple Demand
The simple demand the people of Nagere/Potiskum Federal constituency are making that the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) should invite the Returning Officer to narrate his ordeal in the hands of the rogue police officer and how he was misled by the compromised Electoral Officer to announce a widely doctored result.
They also insisting that the Yobe State Electoral Commissioner, Mr Ibrahim Abdullahi, mni, should stand by the truth and good conscience, and ensure that the litany of grievous electoral misconducts that attended the Nangere/Potiskum Federal house of Representatives election are looked into with a view to ensuring equity and fairness and restoration of people’s faith in our electoral process.
