By; MOHAMMED KAWU, Bauchi.
National Union of Bauchi State Students (NUBASS) has accused the state government of high-handedness and meddling into the election affairs of the union with imposition of its favoured candidates for the elections.
The union noted that the Bauchi state government subterranean moves into the students’ elections process also culminated to the denial for some aspirants to some elective offices of the purchase of election forms, all in the bid to impose its favoured candidates
Some of the aggrieved students aspiring for elective offices into the national body of the union, described as alarming and illegal the purported elections held Saturday, 8th October, 2916 held at the Multi-purpose Indoor sports hall, Bauchi.
The aggrieved students led by the Union’s convention monitoring committee, Comrade Abideen Mohammed Aliyu in a press conference at NUJ Secretariat Bauchi, Monday, spoke of various illegalities in the conduct of elections into the union,
”The director SSS in his own magnanimity, because there are complaints that some aspirants are not willing to go to the convection ground on the 8th October because some are having examinations and some were even denied the forms. The issue was put to vote and the voting was conducted and counted at the commissioner of police office, those that disagreed for the conduct of election on the 8th October 2013 have the majority which votes were also approved by the commissioner of police”.
Consequently, the Senate President and I were called by the deputy commissioner of police at the evening where we realized he was then having a meeting with S.A to the Governor on Students Affairs in the person of Mohammed Abubakar Jibo. We waited for about 20 minutes and when they came out the deputy commissioner of police called some names and said these are the people that are eligible to be voted for”.
According to him, the deputy commissioner of police also ruled that there will be no going back in holding the planned elections on Saturday the 8th October, 2016, thus debunking the earlier approval that there is not going to be elections on that Saturday.
Comrade Abideen Aliyu said that it was also resolved at the office of the deputy commissioner of police that the Ex-president of the union should take over the activities of the national convention with a mandate of 10 days within which to conduct a free and credible elections into the union.
“Friday at the police commissioner’s office we are before him together with the life patron of the union when we got a message, “An order of this Honourable Court (Chief Magistrate) restraining the commissioner of police, Director SSS and Commandant NSCDC as defendants/respondents from supervising the conduct of elections into any of the executive positions of NUBASS pending the hearing and determination of the substantive suit”. October 11, 2016 was put for hearing of the motion on notice.
Aliyu said however that to their greatest dismay, Saturday they experienced the already dissolved convention committee on its preparations to conduct elections into the union at the Multi-purse sports hall with the full backing of the police.
When contacted, the Special Assistant to the Governor on Students Affairs, Mohammed Abubakar Jibo who admitted that the state government provided N2.5 million to the students to conduct the elections, however described the aggrieved students as not guinea members of the union, but rather retrogressive elements poised to subvert the elections processes.
Special Assistant Jibo also denied Knowledge of the Chief Magistrate Court order, as well as the involvement of the Bauchi state government into the union’s affairs, saying his presence at the elections venue is to serve as witness to the event.
