‘I Didn’t Lose Gubernatorial Election’, Maku insist

Mr Labaran Maku, governorship candidate of APGA has yesterday said that “The outcome of the election results is unacceptable.  This is because there were issues of widespread fraud, conspiracy and collusion between INEC, the police, the military and the Al-Makura Regime, which led to criminal and large-scale rigging of the vote to impose Tanko Al-Makura on the people of Nasarawa State.

“What happened in Nasarawa does not qualify to be called an election.  It was an electoral coup executed by the INEC and the security chiefs in Nasarawa State purely for ethno-religious reasons,” the former minister of information said yesterday in Akwanga during a chat with pressmen.

He said his claims can be proven from “the process of materials distribution and appointment of Adhoc electoral staff and even the posting of INEC Resident Electoral Commissioner to Nasarawa State, it was clear that the agenda was to massively rig the votes in Nasarawa State for Al-Makura to continue in power.  Most of the INEC Adhoc staff were either core APC members or sympathizers.  The rest were bought over by the regime.

“In many cases, results sheets were not available.  In most cases, card readers were set aside to allow massive rigging to take place in various units and unspecified localities outside electoral units.

“INEC Adhoc staff played the role of APC agents and manipulated the voting process to favour the APC.  Mercenaries and thugs were equally deployed to make sure that places where APC was losing were disrupted through attacks on polling and collation centres.

“The INEC Resident Electoral Commissioner ensured that materials were delivered mainly to places where APC would have the opportunity to rig.  All the places dominated by APGA either suffered shortage of electoral materials or were supplied card readers programmed to fail.

“Ballot box snatching was rampant. There was intimidation of voters, destruction of election results and other coordinated crimes by the thugs supported by police in some cases that made the so-called re-election of Tanko Al-Makura laughable and a charade.

Maku opined that “There were attacks by mercenaries in Awe, Doma, Obi, Lafia and Kokona Local Government Areas, aside from the fake policemen and soldiers recruited by Al-Makura to unleash terror on hapless electorate.

 “In Karu collation centres, soldiers stormed the place, beat up everyone at site and carted away materials only to cook up outrageous figures for the APC at Mararaba, which is a known stronghold of APGA.

According to the former minister, “What happened in Kokona was a shame.  A local government APC could never dream of winning was suddenly manipulated by rigging the vote in Agwada, Sabon Gida and Hadari to cook up figures for the APC.

 “Most of Saturday and Sunday was suffused with widespread reports of ballot theft and thumb-printing at Government House, NADP home of the Governor, Sandaji Hotel and on a notorious farm in Keffi known for shady deals since the National Assembly and the Presidential elections of March 28, 2015.

“The worse forms of violence and abuses occurred at Awe, Giza, Bassa, Dadare, Adudu, Ikposogye, Akwaika of Obi Local Government Area as well as Lafia Metropolis where armed APC thugs operating under the tacit cover of the police attacked APGA supporters, voters and stabbed to death one APGA supporter in the premises of the Ibrahim Abacha Youth Centre in the full glare of the police.  Other thugs in Lafia attacked voting centres at Tudun Gwandara and Chiroma Electoral Ward.

Speaking further, Maku said “The scale of abuses is exemplified by widespread cancellation of APGA votes by the INEC in collusion with security personnel and the APC.  In Doma Local Government Area, over 10,000 votes belonging to APGA were cancelled on flimsy grounds.

 “Everywhere figures were cooked up and announced to a dumb-founded public who stayed shell-shocked as this absurdity in the name of election lasted in Nasarawa State.

Maku said further, “If what happened in Nasarawa State is a sample of the new APC regime in Nigeria, our country is up to a long long night of state criminality that will surely tarnish the electoral process reforms and the new standards set by President Goodluck Jonathan, which have been applauded by the whole world.

“Nasarawa’s case was worsened by the ethno-religious conspiracy in the North, which continues to see our state as a fiefdom for the theocratic domination of the indigenous people of the state.

 “We will fight on till freedom, liberty and justice is attained for all our people regardless of ethnic, religious and social origins.