…Says 200,000 votes cancelled in bye-election eye opener
Juliana Taiwo-Obalonye, Abuja
Bauchi State Governor, Mohammed Abubakar, has said the decampees Senators from the All progressives Congress (APC) to the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), as merely playing to the gallery.
The affected senators are Sulaiman Mohammed Nazif and Isa Misau.
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Abubakar who said he was in the presidential villa to brief President Muhammadu Buhari about the recent Senatorial bye-election to fill the vacancy created by the death of Sen. Ali Wakili, representing Bauchi South senatorial District, who slumped and died at his Gwarimpa residence, described them as Abuja based politicians that are not grounded at the grassroots in Bauchi State, which is why the huge funds they expended for the polls yielded no results.
He said, “I don’t want to boast but you know election is local. Some people want to come to Abuja and play to the gallery, and I am talking about the defectors.
“My answer is the congresses in Bauchi State along with other states in the APC and in many states that parallel congresses were conducted, because some members of the party were in opposition to the governors who were strong enough to conduct these parallel congresses. In Bauchi State, there was no single parallel congress that was conducted.
“Secondly, the 11th August election took place and the APC won resoundingly. Let me tell you that all of those people who decamped including these two senators rallied round and spent a lot of money in order to defeat the APC in the election but the results like I said is out in the public and we have won resoundingly, so I am sure the result of 2019 elections are not going to be any different.”
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He added that he used the opportunity of the visit to brief the President on the lessons learnt from the recent polls.
According to him, “This is the first opportunity I have had since the election of 11th August to brief Mr. President because when the election took place, the President was away on short leave abroad and I just came in today to brief him adequately about what transpired in Bauchi.
“I have told him that we have learnt a lot of lessons from the the election. For example, close to 200,000 votes were cancelled. This is an eye opener for us that we have to work very hard and train agents very well to be able to prevent this kind of situation.”