The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) candidate in the April 11
governorship election in Yobe State, Alhaji Adamu Maina Waziri, has
faulted the exercise over what he called severe inducement of the
resident electoral commissioner (REC) in the state three days to the
election.
Waziri, who spoke to LEADERSHIP, also declared that he will head to the Election Petitions Tribunal as he has neither conceded defeat in the governorship contest nor congratulated the declared winner, Governor Ibrahim Geidam of the All Progressives Congress (APC), because the eligibility of Geidam to contest the election was unconstitutional.
“I have not conceded defeat or congratulated Governor Ibrahim Geidam for the simple reason that I have some disputes to settle with the result of the election.
“We intend to go to the Election Tribunal to challenge the result because we have evidence that showed that the resident electoral commissioner in Yobe by name of Abu Zarma has been compromised.
“We have evidence on payments made to his bank accounts by somebody who is the ADC of the governor of Yobe State. These are Bank Tellers showing such payments made about 72 hours to the election into the accounts of the resident electoral commissioner in Zenith Bank and Diamond Bank in Damaturu,” Waziri said.
He added that with such evidence and subsequent events after the election, his team has enough grounds to say that the election was marred by massive irregularities, noting that in many parts of the state, smart card readers were deliberately not used for the accreditation of voters.
On the eligibility of Governor Geidam, Waziri said: “A few days to the election, I had cause to file a suit at the Federal High Court in Abuja as against filing it in the State High Court due to the ongoing strike. The courts had been on strike for five months in Yobe and we had to file the suit in Abuja High Court challenging the eligibility of Governor Ibrahim Geidam to contest the election based on subsisting Supreme Court judgement that defined the tenure of the president and governors to be a maximum of two terms of four years each, not a day longer.
“So, on the basis of that, I filed the suit challenging the eligibility of the governor but the judicial process is cumbersome and the suit is now being slated for hearing sometime this week”.
Waziri, who spoke to LEADERSHIP, also declared that he will head to the Election Petitions Tribunal as he has neither conceded defeat in the governorship contest nor congratulated the declared winner, Governor Ibrahim Geidam of the All Progressives Congress (APC), because the eligibility of Geidam to contest the election was unconstitutional.
“I have not conceded defeat or congratulated Governor Ibrahim Geidam for the simple reason that I have some disputes to settle with the result of the election.
“We intend to go to the Election Tribunal to challenge the result because we have evidence that showed that the resident electoral commissioner in Yobe by name of Abu Zarma has been compromised.
“We have evidence on payments made to his bank accounts by somebody who is the ADC of the governor of Yobe State. These are Bank Tellers showing such payments made about 72 hours to the election into the accounts of the resident electoral commissioner in Zenith Bank and Diamond Bank in Damaturu,” Waziri said.
He added that with such evidence and subsequent events after the election, his team has enough grounds to say that the election was marred by massive irregularities, noting that in many parts of the state, smart card readers were deliberately not used for the accreditation of voters.
On the eligibility of Governor Geidam, Waziri said: “A few days to the election, I had cause to file a suit at the Federal High Court in Abuja as against filing it in the State High Court due to the ongoing strike. The courts had been on strike for five months in Yobe and we had to file the suit in Abuja High Court challenging the eligibility of Governor Ibrahim Geidam to contest the election based on subsisting Supreme Court judgement that defined the tenure of the president and governors to be a maximum of two terms of four years each, not a day longer.
“So, on the basis of that, I filed the suit challenging the eligibility of the governor but the judicial process is cumbersome and the suit is now being slated for hearing sometime this week”.
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