Members of the All Progressive Congress’s (APC) Primary Election Committee sent to conduct elections for the party’s senatorial tickets in Taraba have been rescued by police.
On Saturday, the members were reportedly ambushed and nearly lynched by enraged party members for allegedly conspiring with a faction of the party to rig the election results.
According to reports, the committee members led by Muhammad Alkali were on their way from Yola in Adamawa when they were stopped by a faction of aspirants who allegedly demanded that the election result sheets be handed over to them at a point a few kilometres from Jalingo.
Some party members were said to have rushed to the scene after hearing about the incident and threatened to lynch the committee members, but the police intervened and saved them.
Shortly after the incident, the secretary of the committee, Yahaya Suleiman, read out a resolution reached by the aspirants while addressing reporters at the police headquarters in the state capital.
“We are not under duress to address you, but here are the resolutions reached; that result sheets were not made available to us from the APC National Secretariat,” he said. “That the results were sent and received by Taraba State APC Chairman earlier and on arrival, we were informed that the result sheets were vandalised and that soft copies were consequently sent to us for the primary election.
“That indirect mode of primary elections be adopted for northern and central senatorial zones, while the southern zone shall use the direct mode for senatorial primary elections.”
Elsewhere, two results emerged at the just-concluded House of Representative primary with losers threatening legal action if internal mechanisms of resolution fail.
While a former Speaker of the Taraba State House of Assembly, Mark Useni, was declared the winner of the primary for Donga, Takum Ussa, and Yangtu Special Development Area in one of the results, one Abubakar Umar emerged as the party’s candidate in the same constituency in another result.