Bauchi Governorship Result, Unacceptable – APC Candidate, Amb. Abubakar
…Says, exercise fraught with irregularities
BY ADEYEMI AKANJI, BAUCHI – The governorship candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), in Bauchi State, Air Marshal Saddique Abubakar (rtd), has rejected the result of last Saturday election in the state.
Abubakar described the outcome of the election as a complete “sham and unacceptable” owing to the issues trailing the exercise.
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), on Monday, March 20, 2023 declared serving Governor Bala Mohammed as the winner of the gubernatorial election.
Mohammed defeated the APC governorship candidate, Abubakar and others.
While reacting to the outcome of the elections during a media chat in his residence, Abubakar said that the process was marred by a lot of electoral malpractices in all the 15 LGAs where the PDP and its candidate was declared winners.
Abubakar further said that results were altered to give undue advantage to the PDP and its candidate thereby making the outcome fraught with irregularities, adding that agents of the APC were chased away from the polling units where the party had a stronghold to give room for alterations of the results.
In his words; “Our supporters were intimidated, guns were fired, security personnel were shot at and wounded. Ballot boxes were stuffed. People were not allowed to exercise their franchise freely”.
Abubakar also said that almost all government functionaries in the state were seen going around intimidating voters particularly in Bauchi Local Government Area against the electoral law which forbids moving from one point to the other during the conduct of elections.
According to Abubakar; “We are studying the situation, we are still gathering information about the happenings, we are discussing on the next line of action. We will soon make our position public”.
The former Chief of Air Staff stressed that the declaration by INEC is not the true representation of the collective mandate of the people of the state, stressing that the exercise was not free and fair and therefore unacceptable.
