By Abdullahi Alhassan
The People Democratic Party, or PDP, has rejected the ongoing Local Government elections, which are taking place in roughly 18 local government areas, and has stated that the results would not be accepted by the party.
Alberah Catoh, PDP Publicity Secretary, claimed at a press conference at the Nigeria Union of Journalists, NUJ, Kaduna Secretariat that the Electronic Voting Machines, EVM, which were supposed to print out figures 0000 on their first print out, printed 118 figures, all of which were allocated to the All Progressives Congress, APC, while the opposition parties got nothing. He said that this happened even when no votes were cast.
Mr. Catoh further claimed that the EVN was not functioning properly in some polling places or was designed to accept and print out only results beneficial to the APC.
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The PDP writer went on to say that rigging the election would not have been feasible if the State Independent Electoral Commission, SIECOM, had not caved into Governor Nasir Rufai’s insistence.
Dr.Abdulraman Usman, a key PDP stakeholder, went on to say that only two of the 30 EVMs put in the Limanci ward in Zaria local government area are operational.
He went on to state that seven people were shot dead in the Igabi Local Government Area while voting materials were being transported in full view of security agents.
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Mr.Abdurahman went on to say that the state government, led by El Rufai, had perfected the act of rigging by transporting the EVM to India in order to ensure that the APC won the election.
As a result, he decided that the PDP will not recognize the election results.