The Senatorial candidate of the Peoples Redemption Party (PRP) for Taraba South, Iliyasu Gadu, has challenged Gen.TY Danjuma, a former Minister of Defence to stop interfering in Taraba politics and allow the people freely choose leaders of their choice.
Gado won the Senatorial ticket of the PRP but did not participate in the February 25 National Assembly polls due to the exclusion of his party’s logo from the ballot papers of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).
Speaking in an interview with Daily Trust in Abuja, Gadu said: “Taraba State does not belong to an individual. Therefore he (referring to TY Danjuma) should leave us to choose our leaders.
“He alone cannot decide for Taraba because he has one vote like anyone else. It is high time for him to go and rest because he is not a monarch,” Gadu said.
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While calling on the people of Taraba to stand up for their rights and choices, Gadu said: “We should help the process by doing the right things,” stressing that: “Religion and ethnicity cannot help us.
“In Taraba the rights of individuals are breached by not allowing democratic space to blossom. Manipulation thrives in Taraba because it belongs to an individual,” he said.
Speaking on the exclusion of his party’s logo from the ballot papers of INEC, he said,” I could not think of any reason why INEC would exclude my party from participating in the senate election because all outstanding issues regarding my candidacy had been conclusively resolved with INEC and cleared the way for me to be a candidate for the senatorial election under PRP.”
Explaining that his party duly applied and submitted names to INEC to be uploaded on its portals for the 2023 elections, Gadu said he was disappointed on Election Day when he discovered that INEC excluded the PRP from the ballot papers of the senatorial elections of which he was a bona fide candidate.
