The APC senatorial primary election for Zamfara North was supposed to be a democratic exercise where delegates would freely choose their candidate. Instead, it turned into a battlefield where suspected political thugs, armed with dangerous weapons, took over the polling centres and unleashed mayhem on innocent people.
The thugs stormed Namoda Model Primary School and the Galadima Dangaladima Ward polling unit, located right in front of the Emir's Palace. Voters who had come out peacefully to exercise their franchise were forced to run for their dear lives as the attackers chased them away with weapons.
In the process, two people were killed, many others were injured, and one person was left seriously injured after the thugs turned on themselves in a physical confrontation. This alone shows the level of lawlessness that has become the trademark of the APC in Zamfara State.
Even the Chairman of Kaura Namoda Local Government Area, Mannir Muhammad Haidara, was not spared. He narrowly escaped being lynched after suspected thugs attacked his vehicle at Namoda Model Primary School and damaged parts of it. If a sitting local government chairman can be attacked in broad daylight, what then is the fate of the ordinary voter?
To add salt to injury, confusion trailed the outcome of the primary as two different aspirants, Sahabi Ya'u Kaura and Senator Tijjani Yahaya Kaura, were both declared winners by different officials of the party.
Senator Tijjani Yahaya Kaura, while addressing a press conference at his residence in Kaura Namoda, claimed he was officially declared winner by members of the primary election committee sent by the APC national headquarters. He alleged that the committee chairman was abducted and taken to an undisclosed location by anti-democratic elements, where a result declaring Senator Sahabi Ya'u winner was announced.
According to him, a majority of the committee members rejected that announcement and jointly declared him winner, describing the abduction as an attempt to undermine democracy.
Reacting to the barbaric incident, the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, in Zamfara State has strongly condemned the atrocity committed during the APC primary election in Kaura Namoda, describing it as a shameful and barbaric attack on democracy and human life.
The PDP said it is totally unacceptable for political thugs to kill innocent citizens, injure many others, attack a sitting local government chairman, and abduct election officials in broad daylight in the name of politics.
The party warned that such acts of terror must not be allowed to go unpunished, noting that if the perpetrators are not brought to book, it will embolden them to repeat the same violence during the general elections.
The PDP therefore issued a strong warning to the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, and security agencies to look into this barbaric incident and take immediate action.
The party charged INEC not to accept or recognise any result emanating from such a violent, fraudulent and terror-filled process, stressing that accepting such a result would mean endorsing thuggery and murder as a means of winning elections in Nigeria.
The PDP also called on the Police, DSS and other security agencies to immediately arrest and prosecute all those behind the killings, injuries, attack on the council chairman and abduction of the election committee chairman.
According to the PDP, the security agencies must act now to prove that no one is above the law, and to assure the people of Zamfara State that their lives and votes will be protected in future elections.
The PDP further warned that the people of Kaura Namoda and Zamfara State as a whole have now seen clearly that whenever the APC is involved in any election, violence follows. If they can unleash this level of terror against themselves within the same party, what will they do when they meet opposition parties?
This is why the people of Kaura Namoda and Zamfara State have grown to hate and reject this party. The APC has become synonymous with terror, violence, and bloodshed during elections. Zamfara people want peace, they want democracy, they want a party that respects human life. And that party is certainly not the APC.
