FCT Council Poll: AMAC, Abaji, Chairmanship Candidates Were Declared In Error – Says APC Chairman.
By Sadiq Abubakar, Abuja.
The Chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Alhaji Abdulmalik Usman, has said that the declaration of the party’s chairmanship for AMAC and Abaji area councils Alhaji Suleiman Hassan Gwagwa, and Alhaji Mohammed Angulu Loko, were declared in error by the electoral committee chairmen of the party’s national body and duly monitored by INEC representatives on April, 23, 2021.
Usman, while addressing a press conference at the state secretariat of the party in Abuja, on Friday, said some delegates who voted during primaries thumbed printed the photos of the candidates on the ballot papers, which he said the appeal panel discovered the two candidates votes to be invalid.
He said an appeal committee put in place by the national body of the party later looked into the complaints from both AMAC and Abaji area councils, which he said two different results later emerged.
He said it was on the process that the appeal committee later forwarded their report to the national body of the party, which he said led to substitution of both Chairmanship candidates for AMAC and Abaji Area councils Alhaji Hassan Suleiman Gwagwa and Alhaji Mohammed Angulu Loko, respectively by the national body of the party.
According to him, the party’s indirect primaries for both chairmanship/Councillorship conducted on the April, 23, 2020 across the six area councils were free, fair, transparent and credible.
“And as a party faithful, as a party leader, we listened to our national leaders of our party, as appeal committee that were sent from the national body of the APC later looked into the two complaints and discovered the declaration of the two chairmanship candidates for AMAC and Abaji, were done in error, ” he said.
He said the national body of the APC had since forwarded the names of Abubakar Umar Abdullahi and Murtala Usman Karshi, to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) as chairnanship candidates for Abaji and AMAC for the February 12, 2022 council election in the FCT.
The APC chairman, therefore, urged party members and supporters to remain calm, saying the party moves was to see how to ensured there was peace and unity especially among the aggrieved candidates and their supporters.
