SPEAKER of the House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara has called on the Bauchi State Governor, Mohammed Abdullahi Abubakar to surrender the mandate of the people to the state at this point that he has already lost the reelection bid following the outcome of last Saturday’s gubernatorial election.
The Speaker who was flanked by the PDP Governorship candidate, Bala Mohammed Abdulkadir, State Chairman of the PDP and other party stalwarts during a press conference held at the NUJ Secretariat on Monday in Bauchi, alleged that the cancellation of the election results in Tafawa Balewa local government by the State Returning Officer, Professor Kyari Mohammed was illegal and orchestrated to oppress the people of the state.
Yakubu Dogara further alleged that the Governor had on several occasions referred to him as a lightweight politician whose constituency could only deliver nothing more than seventy thousand votes, adding that “Governor Abubakar boasted that he won his election in 2015 with 300,000 votes and does not need a single vote from Tafawa Balewa local government to become a Governor.”
“I want the media to ask the Governor, will it therefore not amount to an act of unprecedented shamelessness for him to go now to Tafawa Balewa, my constituency with only 70,000 votes that he does not require, to go and campaign for their votes or to Illegally source for votes from there, to make up and become a Governor, he stated.”
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The Speaker added that “If there is any honour on his part, having declared that he doesn’t need one single vote from there, I think, honour demands that he should surrender at this point that he has lost this election.”
He also alleged that apart from the illegal cancellation, INEC in the state was still sourcing for other units that they will cancel even after they have collated and declared the results as they are not sure of what will happen in Tafawa Balewa during the supplementary election.
Yakubu Dogara said that the election was peaceful, free and fair at the unit level as attested to by the local government returning officer, alleging that they only challenge they encountered, was that political thugs of governor Abubakar invaded the local government cool centre and carted away with some result sheets.
He then called on the INEC Chairman, Professor Mahmoud Yakubu as an indigene of the state to as a matter of urgency intervene in the election crisis rocking the state, saying that declaration of inconclusive election in the state by INEC was a brazen rape of the mandate of Bauchi State.
It would be recalled that the State Gubernatorial Election Returning Officer, Professor Kyari Mohammed had in the early hours of Monday declared the gubernatorial election inconclusive following the cancellation of the results of Tafawa Balewa LGA and ordered INEC to organise a rerun election there in the next 21 days.
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