The Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, Kaduna State chapter said it has uncovered various ways the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC, intended to use to rig the March 9 governorship and House of Assembly elections in the state.
A statement from the state Publicity Secretary of the party, Abraham Alberah Catoh, said that the ruling party intended to invite President Muhammadu Buhari on Thursday to come and mobilize the voters for him since it lacks the clout amongst the people.
It said, “To mobilize and make maximum use of some Islamic preachers for sensitization.
“Reach out to the leadership of the Eze Ndigbo and the Ohaneze Ndigbo to discourage them from turning out enmasse on election day.
“The APC plan the use of thugs known as (Kato da Gora) who will go from shop to shop to threaten and intimidate the Igbos from Thursday to Saturday against voting out the APC.
“Suppressing of votes and blockade of PDP strongholds. Militarizing the Southern Kaduna axis on election day to deliberately disenfranchise the voters because of its large PDP following.”
The statement further alleged that governor Nasir El-Rufai had encouraged the Ad-hoc Staff to stuff ballots and cancel units for over voting in PDP strongholds.
“He has also encouraged the non-usage of Card Readers in the PDP strongholds so that votes cast will not count.
“Vote buying through buying of PDP agents, loyalists and officials to engage in anti-party activities.
“The APC has equally made arrangements to massively buy votes, directly from voters on elections day, and are deploying huge resources for that purpose,” the statement alleged.
On the reasons given by a former gubernatorial aspirant, Sani Sidi for dumping PDP, the party said, “The attention of the Peoples’ Democratic Party Kaduna State Chapter is drawn to some media reports ostensibly sponsored to deliberately mislead members of the public where the erstwhile DG NEMA Muhammad Sani Sidi was reported to have left our party on some flimsy excuses.
“He was reported to have accused the Party of manipulation, impunity, lack of internal democracy and intimidation of Party Delegates during the party primaries in which he was a contestant that failed to secure the party’s nomination.
“The report went further to imply that the gubernatorial candidate and the state leadership of the party are lacking in sincere engagement towards consultative and genuine reconciliation.
“He also insinuated that there was mutual mistrust between the Party leadership, the Gubernatorial Candidate and some members of the Party. Finally, he holds an opinion that there is no clear cut blueprint for an efficient and effective service delivery that will cater for the welfare, peace, order and good governance for the good people of Kaduna state.
“It is on record that Sani Sidi has contributed nothing to the peace, progress and prosperity of our great party. His coming into the contest for the Gubernatorial Primary Election on our party’s platform was doomed to fail.
“He has since inception of the party being a beneficiary, who had served in various capacities ranging from being a Special Adviser to Hon Nenadi Esther Usman former Minister of finance under the Obasanjo administration, a Commissioner of Works and Transport, commissioner overseeing the Ministry of Health and Commissioner for Culture and tourism. He was also the Director General of NEMA for more than six years under the auspices of our great party.
“It is no wonder that he failed to connect with the party delegates who subsequently rejected him at the gubernatorial party congress . We expected that as an acclaimed democrat, he will embrace the outcome in good faith and re-strategize against the future, however, in his desperation he turned around to blame everybody, including the party, but himself for his sorrowful outing.
“The party has it on good authority that he influenced the posting of the Returning Officer to the party congress .
“Nevertheless, he turned around to blame the party for his defeat which is rather unfortunate. It is instructive to state, that of all the nine (9) gubernatorial aspirants who contested with him at the primaries, he appears to be the only person who has complained of lack of internal democracy. The party cannot recall where its candidates were chosen either by fiat, impunity or imposition.
“As far as the party is concerned, there has been a harmonious working relationship between him and amongst all the aspirants, the first runner up, Senator Suleiman Othman Hunkuyi and all other aspirants have been part of the meet-the-people tour spanning across all the 23 local government areas in the state.
“At the flag-off of the gubernatorial campaign at the trade fair complex Zaria road Sani Sidi came towards the tail end of the event after almost all the speakers have spoken at the occasion.”
The party allayed the fears of unsuspecting members of the public and reiterated that its candidate had reeled out the blue print of how he intends to govern Kaduna State, if given the mandate.
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