Senator Bulus Amos, who represents Gombe South, has appealed for the cancellation of the APC senatorial primary in the area, claiming that the election was tainted by unusual electoral officers.
According to Mela Lashiru, the senator’s aide and polling agent on Saturday, votes were not counted, but rather assigned to each of the three candidates.
Amos received 40 votes out of 200 eligible voters, leaving 70 votes for Bilyaminu Babadidi and 90 votes for Joshua Lidani, the election’s winner, as declared by Sani Sabo, the Returning Officer.
The agent informed our correspondent on Tuesday that the process was tainted when a government appointee was left to act as returning officer, stating that authorities were brought inside two hours after the voting exercise was carried out.
He said, “On Saturday, May 28, Gombe South senatorial primary election of the All Progressives Congress was conducted at Billiri local government, after delegates cast their votes, security intimidated and insisted that everyone should leave the premises including the aspirants, only the three agents of the aspirants and electoral officials should remain.
“During the process of vote sorting which the agent was as well denied from holding the ballot of their aspirants, the electoral officers handled the ballots which the sorting process clearly indicated that senator BK Amos – the incumbent senator representing Gombe South, was leading.
“The electoral official and all the local government party chairmen entered a secluded room and all agents were denied access by the security. After about two hours, Sani Sabo, an appointee of the state government whose name was not among the officials to conduct the election, came out without the ballot and announced a result that was not counted.”
Lashiru went on to say that his principal had filed an appeal seeking an outright revocation of the results, emphasizing that it would be an injustice for the people’s will to be ignored by the state’s administration.
