John Shiklam in Kaduna
Kaduna State Governor, Mallam Nasir el-Rufai, has said that allegations of irregularities in last Saturday’s local government elections would be investigated with a view to remedy them.
Speaking with journalists after the All Progressives Congress (APC) Local Government Congress for Kaduna North Local Government which held yesterday at the Command Guest House, Kaduna, he said despite the human factor that affected some aspects of the election, the voting machines worked perfectly.
Council elections which were held on Saturday were trailed by protests and allegations that the results were not declared at the polling units by the returning officers.
The opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) had alleged that many of the returning officers were kidnapped and did not declare results of the elections in some places, especially in Jama’a local and Kajuru local governments which were said to have been won by the APC.
The PDP had accused the ruling party for allegedly manipulating the process.
The governor who acknowledged that some malfeasance were reported, promised that the issues would be investigated.
“We have received reports of some electoral officers leaving their positions. The electronic voting machine worked very well but the human factors are always there and must be addressed.
“They will be investigated and we will learn from it. But what we are happy about is that the electronic voting machines worked perfectly.
“They also contained vital information that election riggers do not know about. We will investigate everything and we will take every step to remedy them,†the governor said.
According to him, the out come of the local government election has clearly indicated that members of the APC in the state remained united.
He said: “Our party is 100 per cent united ahead of 2019 election. Our performance in the last local government election has shown that our party is united and one.â€
The local government congresses of the party was peaceful as all the executives of the 23 local governments were returned through affirmation.
The Chairman of the APC national committee monitoring team to Kaduna State, Saleh Moddibbo, said the congresses went on smoothly in all the local governments areas in the state.
