SOKOTO GUBER: WAMAKKO RETURNS
•As ANPP rejects result in advance, claiming irregularites
From JULIANA TAIWO-OBANLONYE, Abuja and TUNDE OMOLEHIN, Sokoto, (with agency's report).
Monday, February 20, 2012
The erstwhile governor of Sokoto State, Aliyu Wamakko of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) was yesterday declared winner of Saturday's governorship election. He defeated 29 other contestants. But the All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP) rejected the result even before it was announced. Announcing the results in Sokoto, Chief Returning Officer, Prof Abdullahi Zuru, said that Wamakko polled 518,247 votes to beat his closest rival, Alhaji Yusha'u Muhammed Kebbe of the ANPP, who garnered 131, 048 votes.
Zuru said the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) candidate, Alhaji Abubakar Yabo, came third with 7, 323 votes. He said Wamakko scored 71.18 per cent of the 728,108 votes cast in the election. Zuru, who is the Vice Chancellor of Kebbi State University of Science and Technology, Aleiro, noted that 43, 618 votes were invalid. According to Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), the state has 2,453, 857 registered voters.
Meanwhile, President Goodluck Jonathan last night congratulated Wamakko on his victory. While welcoming Wamakko's re-election for a second term by a clear majority, he described his victory as a manifestation of the people's continued faith in PDP and their satisfaction with the performance of the Wamakko administration during his first term.
In a statement signed by his spokesman, Dr. Reuben Abati, the President urged the Sokoto Governor-elect to seize the opportunity of the fresh four-year mandate. Meanwhile, ANPP yesterday rejected in advance the results.
Citing alleged detention of its chairman, arrest of agents and intimidation of members, the party said it could not accept the outcome of the exercise that was fraught with irregularities and intimidation.
The police arrested six hoodlums for alleged violence during the exercise that witnessed a large turn-out.
The Supreme Court had, on January 27, 2012, sacked five governors for over-staying their tenures. The affected governors were those of Adamawa, Bayelsa, Cross River, Kogi and Sokoto states. The apex court ordered the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to conduct fresh elections in the affected states within 90 days.
Interestingly, the electoral body had earlier conducted the governorship election in Kogi State and only sworn in the winner, Capt. Idris Wada, on January 30. Elections into the remaining four states were staggered and fixed for February 4 (Adamawa), February 11 (Bayelsa), February 18 (Sokoto) and February 25 (Cross River).
Results from the elections have so far favoured the PDP while its main opponents in the affected states, the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) and Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) have been crying blue murder over the results. With weekend's election in Sokoto, it only remains one state (Cross River) where a fresh election will be conducted next Saturday.
Addressing newsmen in Sokoto yesterday, Alhaji Kebbe said his party would not accept the result, since the process that led to the exercise was not in line with the electoral law that guarantees a free and fair election.
According to him; 'we are here to tell the world of our position and stand in the just-concluded election. We have observed that the process leading to the whole exercise was faulty and such indicated that, there could not be a credible election on Saturday.
'As you are aware, our members were intimidated, while other sustained serious injuries and causalities were recorded during the election. Even before now, our state party chairman was arrested and detained and our party agents were also arrested on the election day, all these happened with the help of security agencies that could not take a neutral position during this crucial period.' Kebbe also alleged that the ruling PDP used the security agencies to intimidate his party men, before and during the election period.
'They (PDP) took the advantage of our non-violent approach to attack us before and during the election. All this was done under the watch of security agencies in the state. This cannot be accepted and we, as a party, faulted and rejected the whole process that led to the poll,' he explained. He said all avenues used by his party during the pre-election period to correct all the lapses to achieve a credible election were unsuccessful, adding that: 'We have written several petitions to the authorities, but to no avail'. He said the case of the state Commissioner of Police, Alhaji Adisa Bolanta, who should have been redeployed from the state to restore police's loss of vote of confidence by the opposition, was not done.'
According to the governorship candidate, Alhaji Bolanta, who was accused of being biased before the election, was 'allowed to conduct this fraudulent election. Many of our party agents could not represent us at their designated polling units as they were all arrested at Illela Local Government by policemen on the election day.'
His words: 'Armed youths were moving freely on motorcycles without being challenged by securitymen, while in the process, they harassed both the electorate and electoral officials, carted away ballot boxes in some cases or forced some officials to sign election result sheets under duress and nothing was being done.'
Kebbe further affirmed that the observation and position of his party was not meant to undermine the nation's electoral body, saying; 'that is not my attitude to discredit a fair election. But the fact remains that the process that led to this exercise was not transparent and could not be credible as well,' he said.
Kebbe noted that all assurances given by the electoral body to organise a credible exercise could not be fulfilled. He, however, called on INEC to cancel the election and conduct another one that would be credible and transparent: 'We still believed that INEC can do better than this,' he said.