The ruling All Progressives Congress, APC, accused the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, of favouring the Peoples Democratic Party following the electoral umpire’s stance on the ruling party governorship candidate in Zamfara State.
INEC had insisted that APC didn’t hold its governorship primary in Zamfara State, and so has no candidate, a position that has been dogged by controversy with conflicting court verdicts.
The National Chairman of the party, Comrade Adams Oshiomhole, on Wednesday in Abuja torn into the electoral umpire claiming its stance smacks of taking sides with PDP.
“If there is anything, this INEC has been very, very unfair to APC. But we just discovered that we have a moral responsibility, the fact that we are a governing party gives us a certain level of oath that we cannot afford to want to be seen to rubbish the situation because, if we rubbish everything, it will then be seen as we do not want to have the elections.
“As we speak, there are two RECs that are virtually campaigning side by side with PDP. INEC, without giving us any concrete explanation or giving concrete evidence went ahead to say that we cannot conduct election in Zamfara, we cannot field candidates in Zamfara state, thereby seeking to award without any contest, nullify democracy in Zamfara state. Is that the way your friends behave if they were our friends?
“INEC is working more for PDP based on evidence I can show. How can they explain that a court of competent jurisdiction gave orders in Zamfara to say this candidates are eligible to contest election and another High Court in Abuja gave the verdict saying APC did not conclude its primaries but it did not give order to INEC.
“There is no order issued by the Abuja high court given to INEC. But there is a concrete existing order by a Zamfara high court which upheld the primaries that were conducted in Zamfara. The INEC chairman had said that if there were two judgements, they will adopt the last judgement. The Abuja judgement came first, the Zamfara judgement came last even though it was the same day.
“As much as INEC said they will abide by the last court order, when it came to Zamfara, they changed the goal post. We have been at the receiving end of abuse. There is a candidate in Kano whose nomination we forwarded to INEC, INEC changed the nomination and as we speak, we are in court and we showed our evidence”, he alleged.
