Emmanuel Awari-Jalingo
The long over due controversies within the All Progressive Congress APC, Governorship and other positions Primaries in Taraba State, have finally laid to rest.
The contestants are
Senator Emmanuel Bwacha, Dr. Anthony Manzo, Chief David Sabo Kente, Engineer Saleh Mamman, Barr. Danladi Kifasi and Senator Yusuf Abubakar Yusuf.
Announcing the result, chairman of the electoral panel, Lt. General Tukur Burutai (Rtd), gave the scores for each contestant. Senator Emmanuel Bwacha – 778 votes, Yusuf Abubakar Yusuf – 5 votes and 8 invalid votes, while others scored 0 votes.
He gave the total number of delegates 835, total number of accredited deligates 796 and total number of Ballot papers 900 hundred.
In his acceptance remarks, Senator Emmanuel BwAcha said the other aspirants boycott the primaries due to fear of losing out. “Most of the aspirants are working with the state government to see that I don’t emerge or APC fails to appear on the ballot, I have that information, they wanted a fresh primary but run away from participating.
Similarly, the re-run primaries election in Bali / Gassol Federal Constituency was conducted peacefuly. The Contestants are Gambo Mubarak vs Yusuf Na’awe .
The scores are, Yusuf Na’awe scored Four 4 votes while Gambo Mubarak polled 97 votes and was declared return elected.
Meanwhile that of Jalingo 2 state constituency was held at the party sectariate with Eight contesting for the seat. At the end of the primaries, the current serving Member Hon. Yahuza Maidulailu scored 23 votes, Bashir Nasiru Baba 1 vote and 1 invalid, which out of the eight contestants only three were physically present.
There were complains by a contestant Nasiru Baba regarding the list of deligates.
“The list brought by the National Secretariat of the party is totally different from the list we have here, so I don’t agree with the list.
It would be recalled that the Supreme Court had on 1st February 2023 nullified the primary election that brought in Senator Emmanuel Bwacha as the APC governorship candidate and ordered a fresh primaries in the state within ten days.
Supreme Court nullifies Bwacha’s nomination as Taraba APC candidate
Earlier, the returning officer of the re-election, Lt. Gen. Tukur Buratai (RTD), while addressing the delegates, promised that the process will be free and fair and urged them to be law-abiding through out the process.
In another development, an aggrieved Taraba APC Gubernatorial aspirants have decided to boycott the fresh primaries, saying that they have chosen to boycott the party’s Feb.10 rerun primaries because it is against the Supreme Court judgement.
Sen. Yusuf Yusuf, the Spokesperson for the aspirants said this at a news conference on Thursday in Abuja.
Yusuf, who represents Taraba Central at the National Assembly said the planned rerun was in contrast to the apex court ruling.
“For the purpose of refreshing our memories, the race to clinch the APC governorship ticket started in 2022 with seven aspirants who obtained the party‘s expression of interest and nomination forms.
“On the day of the primaries, while all aspirants and delegates had an unresolved meeting at Shield Hotel Jalingo, for security concerns.
“The chairman of the committee Mr. Lawrence Onochukwu was taken to the police headquarters in Jalingo for safety,” he said.
He added that on seeing photos of fake direct primary election in the social media, Onochukwu granted a news conference that he never authorise any primaries.
He said that the election would hold the next day after sorting out all the issues.
Yusuf added that to the surprise of other aspirants, Sen. Emmanuel Bwacha was announced as winner of the governorship primaries that never held.
“After sorting out all the internal mechanism within the party to arrest the situation, no effort was made by its leadership to do the right thing.
“Hence the need for legal action against the party and the acclaimed winner of the primaries Sen. Emmanuel Bwacha.
“The Legal action ended at the apex court and we were vindicated that truly there were no gubernatorial primaries in Taraba APC,” Yusuf said.
He said that before the case got to the Supreme Court, one from the six aspirants left the APC for New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP) due to lack of internal democracy.
He said the remaining five aspirants decided not to leave the APC for intruders, but to stay and fight for their right and to protect democracy.
“Following the Supreme Court judgement of Feb. 1, that voided the purported governorship primaries that produced Bwacha.
“The party National working Committee (NWC) under the leadership of Sen. Abdullahi Adamu did not convene any meeting with the aspirants whether physically or virtually for any briefing.