With counting of votes ongoing at the Eagle Square venue of the presidential primary of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), allegations of rigging have emerged with accusing fingers pointed at a North-West governor.
An eye witness at the APC Presidential Primary revealed that the Chairman of the Election Sub-Committee of the APC, a sitting Governor from a North-West State, was caught privately taking custody of ballot papers and signing them without other members of the committee being aware.
The governor was reported to have produced the ballot papers although members of the committee were meant to have witnessed the signing and stamping the ballot boxes openly.
According to a member of the Election Committee who didn’t want his name in print for fear of being sanctioned and victimised, the North-West governor singlehandedly brought in most of the volunteers for the work.
“In fact, some of us had to force our way to also bring in 5 volunteers while he alone brought 50 people.
“He alone took custody of the ballot papers and signed them without anybody aware. He just produced the ballot papers and he had told us earlier that we shall be involved in the stamping (customized) of the papers for additional security, but he did it alone”, the aggrieved committee member said.
Still listing how the primary was rigged in favour of a preferred aspirant, the source said: “There are also many instances of delegates taking snapshots of their ballot papers after voting. When confronted about this, as it is against our rules, the governor who is the head of the Election Committee said we should leave the matter, claiming we can’t enforce the rule.
“Someone was caught with ballot papers in his pocket and ran but I think he was caught. But no diligent pursuit of the matter at all.
“We have claims of those volunteers this governor brought in filling ballot papers for people in Katsina and Kano, this is also against the rule we publicly agreed to. As Election Committee, we didn’t brief the agents about any of our rules before voting started. This I believe is very flawed and process compromised”.