By; JACOB ONJEWU DICKSON
While lamenting the flawed process that produced the candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) ahead of the 2023 Kaduna State gubernatorial polls, a strong contender who finished second, Assistant Comptroller General (ACG) Customs Service (rtd), Malam Bashir Abubakar (Barden Kudun Zazzau) has said that their doors remain open for peaceful resolution of the grievances.
Malam Abubakar disclosed this, shortly after a closed door meeting with his campaign team and supporters in Kaduna on Tuesday night, warned that not resolving the issues may spell doom for the party.
“Soon after the primary election, we sat with my campaign Director General, Engineer James Bawa Magaji and and others in the team and decided to write to the appeal committee at the national secretariat. We have copied the party chairman, INEC and security agencies.
“The Distinguished Senator who was declared winner communicated with me a day after the election, his campaign DG and some senior government officials reached out that they need to sit down with my team and I for a meeting.
“I decided to call my campaign team and legal team. We just concluded meeting, we came up with resolution
1. Our complaints in writing should be followed to the letter
2. The management team agreed that I should sit with Senator and his team and listen to them in order to see how to forge ahead,” he said.
According to him, whatever discussion they have with the Senator will be communicated to the media subsequently.
Earlier he explained that by virtue of regulations of INEC and APC, congresses were arranged for May 17 in the federation, subsequently, May 26, for party primary election.
“Unfortunately in Kaduna State it was marred with anomaly, there was no congress in the state, but we heard an announcement by a team supported by government of the state and there was concession among the groups.
“My coming out today is to voice out that there was no congress in Kaduna State on May 17.
“Our party supporters, numbering over 3,000 attempted to buy forms at the party office in Kaduna and they were denied. They were able to take video evidence at the scene.
“They bought forms from Abuja, brought to Kaduna office and it was rejected. As law abiding citizens they took the forms home.
“We wrote a petition and the appeal committee refused to collect petition, we wrote the president and Commander-in-chief, Muhammadu Buhari and copied relevant security agencies,” he said.
According to him, “On day of election, we were called to party office in Kaduna for briefing and we were briefed about the dos and don’ts it was at that time the list of delegates was given to us and the election was to take place in an hour.
“The entire process became a charade and child play.
“We decided however to participate in the election, bearing in mind that our over 3,000 delegates were not on the list.
“The election screening process started and as expected, none of my over 3,000 delegates was allowed to entire the Yar’Adua Hall Murtala Square where the election took place. We allowed them to do their drama and the supporters of the government delegate were able to give me 37 votes to finish second,” he said.
On behalf of his campaign team, he called on, “management of our great party to look into the grievances of our people who participated in primaries. Doing so will unite the party and make it stronger.
“We are afraid however, of the consequences that not doing so might cause,” he warned.
He used this opportunity to commend their supporters and called on them to remain law abiding.
