A faction of the All Progressives Congress, APC, in Bauchi State believed to be loyal to Speaker, House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara, has warned the chairman of the Ward and Local Government Congress committee of party posted to the state to abide by the APC guidelines during the conduct of the congresses.
This was contained in a letter of petition addressed to the state chairman of the APC, Alhaji Uba Ahmed Nana, dated May 4, 2018, and signed by member of the Bauchi State House of Assembly representing Lere/Bula Constituency, Mohammed Aminu Tukur, and made available to DAILY POST.
The faction expressed worry that the state chapter of the party issued directive that only forms that come through the party office in the state would be valid for the ward election in the state contrary to the national position.
Aminu stated that the position of the APC state chairman was in contradiction with that of the bational office of the party that, “forms are given to state committees on the directives of the national leadership of the party to be sold to candidates/ aspirants who may be denied such forms on the instructions of some sitting governors as applied to Bauchi state”.
The letter further stated that: “In view of the above, you are hereby requested to allow for free flow of democratic principles without being biased”, warning that: “Any breach of peace and security in this regard, you would be held responsible”.
Meanwhile, Senator Nazif Sulieman (Bauchi North) expressed anger over the delay in providing materials for the exercise, alleging that there was a ploy by Governor Mohammed Abubakar to stop candidates not loyal to him from contesting.
He said: “Everybody is geared towards the elections. We are fully ready. We paid about N13 million for tellers for purchase of the forms but to our greatest surprise we haven’t got the forms and it is surprising that we look for the committee that is charged with conducting the election and they are yet to be found.
“The last meeting they had was with the governor at Government House. The meeting was supposed to be held at the party office but to our greatest surprise there was no meeting at the party secretariat.
“We were shocked that the chairman of the ward/local government congress committee (Dr Tony Macfoy) was praising the governor instead of telling us how the election was going to hold. He left his responsibility to say that the election would be controlled. I have been in politics for 26 years and have not heard of the word controlled election.
“We have paid for the forms and we believe that the forms should be given to those that will contest and up till this moment we haven’t got them and our supporters and executives who we bought these forms for do not have these forms (nomination forms)”.
Also, Senator Gamawa alleged that the Macfoy-led committee came with two forms – one for the coordinators of the governor and the other to “whom they wanted to give to. We thought it was going to be an all-inclusive election and the people of Bauchi are waiting but unfortunately only one group has forms that belong to the government house”.
The concerned senator said that the group had to call the National Chairman of the APC, Chief John Odigie-Oyegun who assured that “If forms are not given to those who purchased them, then the elections stand nullified”.
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