Several aggrieved members of the All Progressives Congress protested on Friday against the victory of Alhaji Sani Danladi at the governorship primary conducted in the state.
The protesters, who marched through the streets of Jalingo, the state capital, called on President Muhammadu Buhari to intervene and save the “soul of the APC” in Taraba.
They alleged that no primary was conducted in the state, rather the chairman of the electoral panel sent to conduct the exercise, Senator Emmanuel Ocheja, connived and wrote the result in Danladi’s favour.
The leader of the eight returning officers, who conducted the exercise across the state, Prince Banire Abdulahi, lamented the electoral panel chairman’s refusal to release the original copies of the result sheets to them.
The chairman had given them photocopies instead, a move Abdulahi described as suspicious.
He said the returning officers had already petitioned the party’s national secretariat over the issue of irregularities in the exercise.
One of the protesters, Hamisu Gado, alleged that apart from issuing photocopies of the result sheets, the returning officers were kidnapped and forced to sign the results, calling on the APC National Working Committee to order a fresh governorship primary in the state.
In a related development, one of the governorship aspirants, Senator Joel Ikenya, who came second in the primary with 11,773 votes, has rejected the result.
