By Ahmad Alabira, Dutse
The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Gwaram local government area of Jigawa state, has urged the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to withdraw the certificate of return issued to the All Progressive Congress (APC) state Assembly member elect
The petition called on the INEC to maintain its earlier decision that, the Gwaram state Assembly constituency election is inconclusive as announced after collation of the election results.
The petition was sent to the national chairman of INEC, Professor Mahmoud Yakubu and a copy of the written complaint made available to this newspaper on Friday.
The petition which was jointly signed by the Gwaram local government PDP chairman and the state assembly candidate, Mr Zakari Muhammad Inuwa said the election was declared inconclusive by the Returning Officer following the cancellations of 12 poling units in the area.
“You may wish to recall that your commission organized and conducted election on the 18th of March 2023 in which political parties, PDP inclusive participated.
“The returning officer of the commission in Gwaram LGA declared that the election was inconclusive due to over voting and other irregularities that led to the cancellations of 12 polling units”, the petition read.
The Petition said “unfortunately after the declaration of the election results inconclusive, some thugs later mobilized and forced the returning officer to declare the APC candidate as winner under duress which contravened and violated the 2023 electoral law”.
Consequently, the candidate of PDP has written a letter of Complaint on 20th March 2023 and addressed to the Jigawa state REC drawing his attention to such development.
“Despite that the Jigawa REC went ahead and issued a certificate of return to APC candidate. This is unfortunate and could be injurious to democracy and democratic value”, the Petition warned.
