Controversy trails Abuja council APC primaries

Aggrieved members of the All Progressives Congress (APC) under the auspices of Concerned APC Faithful in Abuja Municipal Area Council (AMAC) have accused AMAC Chairman, Abdullahi Candido of rigging the party’s primary election for the council’s chairmanship in favour of his annointed candidate, Suleiman Gwagwa.

The party members, therefore, called on the national leadership of the party and the FCT APC technical committee to upturn the result of the election which was conducted on Friday and declare Hon. Murtala Karshi winner.

• FIRS gives MDAs 6 months to clear tax liabilities
• Insecurity: US Secretary of State to meet Buhari today

Spokesperson of the group, Joseph Jonah, while speaking in a press conference said, the result declared did not reflect the true picture of what transpired during the primary election.

According to him, the real winner of the primary was Hon. Karshi whose votes were voided to confer undue advantage on his main challenger, Gwagwa.

He said Karshi’s nine votes were voided while 106 votes were awarded to him as against 110 votes scored by Hon. Gwagwa.

Jonah argued that the nine voided votes would have given Karshi victory over Gwagwa, hence the AMAC Chairman, Candido, resorted to rigging amidst intimidation to hand his anointed candidate victory.

“Also, one of the things we observed during the primary was that other respected party stakeholders like Hon. Bitrus Jisalo and others that came to the venue, voted and left, but Hon. Candido and his vice chairman sat in front of the ballot boxes after voting, intimidating the delegates with their presence, while their thugs were outside and waited till the end of the election.

“Moreover, from our investigation, Hon. Suleiman Gwagwa has not been a member of the APC, he was only brought in by the AMAC chairman to impose him on AMAC residents. Murtala Karshi has laboured for this party for years and now that he is supposed to reap the fruits of his labour, he has been robbed of his votes,” he added.

Reacting, the state chairman of the APC in FCT, Alhaji Abdulmalik Usman, disclosed that the party will set up a reconciliation committee before the end of this week in order to reconcile all aggrieved aspirants that lost out at the party’s primaries.

He expressed confidence that the party shall emerge victorious during the February 12, 2022 chairmanship and councillorship elections across the six area councils.