APC LG Party Primaries in Kaduna, A Sham – Chairmanship Aspirant
BY AMOS TAUNA, KADUNA – A Local Government chairmanship aspirant on the platform of the All Progressives Congress (APC), in Kaduna State, Alhaji Yusuf Idris Amoke, has called on the party leadership to stick to the tradition of democracy.
Amoke, who is contesting for the Kaduna North Local Government, said that it is necessary to remind the party not to take members back to the old days on the premise upon which they fought the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) for the future of democracy and development of the country.
Speaking to newsmen in Kaduna on the purported primary election for the chairmanship in Kaduna North Local Government, Amoke condemned in strong terms the process adopted by the party in the primary election.
He stressed that if not rectified, it would be detrimental to the future of the party in the area even as he lamented that prior to the conduct of the chairmanship primary election in the area, there hasn’t been any formal communication to him on the modalities to be adopted towards ensuring a successful chairmanship primary election in the area.
According to him; “The process started with the buying of forms of intent and all other processes up to the screening. Since after the screening, there hasn’t been any official communication with all the aspirants on the next steps to go as laid down by the party for the primary election.
“There was no communication for the conduct of the primary election and its rescheduled primary election between myself and the party but only got information from the social media which is not healthy for the party and the process for the primary election.
“We did not actually know about the rescheduled date of the primary election, the mode of the election, whether it is going to be direct or indirect primary election. There was no official communication.
“We don’t know whether polling units are going be used or not. We don’t know the location of the centres to be used for the election. We don’t know whether if voters will stand behind each aspirant because there was no communication of what is to be done,” he said.
Amoke also said that a day to the election, he wrote a formal letter to the party and copied all stakeholders including all security agencies in the state on the development in the party.
He said that there is no certified voter register that was made available for the election and therefore wondered if the revalidation exercise of the party has not been completed, adding that even on election day, people were still registering.
Amoke further said that there was a lot of obscurity as regard to membership registration that opened room to a lot problems going into the primary election.
He lamented that on the purported Election Day, he delegated some of his members to the distribution centres only to discover that there were result sheets in all the 12 wards of the Local Government where agents and other stakeholders will sign to certify the result of the election.
He said that it was clear that there were plans not have a free and fair election that would ensure that the choice of the people prevails.
Amoke pointedly said that there was no chairmanship primary election in Kaduna North Local Government Area and called on APC to quickly reschedule a new date for the conduct of the chairmanship election in the area.
