Group wants Taraba APC primary cancelled, alleges N200M bribe

The Taraba Progressive Movement, a group within the All Progressive Congress (APC), has called for the cancellation of the primary elections conducted in the state, describing it as a sham and flawed with massive irregularities and violence.

The group alleged that the Governorship Primary Election Committee‎ led by Senator Emmanuel Dangana Ocheja collected the sum of N200 million from Sani Abubakar Danladi to declare him winner at the middle of the night after an agreement was earlier reached by all stakeholders to suspend the process.‎

The group in a statement signed by its Coordinator, Muhammad Umar said the Taraba State Governorship Primary Election Committee was
highly compromised and “poorly rigged the election for Sani Abubakar Danlandi.”

Umar said the actions of the committee have confirmed the plot to scuttle the primary election uncovered by the group earlier. ‎
They said there was no election in at least 120 wards across the state, but the election committee sat in Jalingo to receive allocated result sheets written in the house of one Ahmed Yusuf.

The results were fabricated by an aspirant who highjacked returning officers and materials at gun point. We therefore call on the party’s national leadership not to accept its outcome.

Elections did not hold in almost all of the 168 wards, and where elections were attempted in Jalingo and Wukari, they were marred with violence, use of fake election result sheet, intimidation of party members and hijacking of returning officers at the ward level‎.

The group added that the results being brandished by the Governorship Primary Election Committee does not even correspond with the reality on ground in Taraba State.

‎As committed democrats, the members of the APC stands firmly for a democratic contest, where only card carrying members of the party in 2014 would be allowed to elect their flagbearer, not a compromised committee imposing candidates that could not win elections for the party.”

The group also called for the disqualification of Sani Abubakar Danlandi and Sen. Joel Ikenya from the race for thuggery and violation of rules guiding conduct of elections.

They appealed to President Muhammadu Buhari and Comrade Adams Oshiomhole to step in and get the purported election canceled to avoid a repeat of what happened in 2015, “when people only voted for the President and refused to come out for the gubernatorial elections.”