PDP faults APC’S victory in Chikun local council re-run election in Kaduna State

• We ‘ll mobilise two million votes for Buhari in Delta, party chieftain vows • Don’t quit, Oyo APC appeals to aggrieved members

THE People’s Democratic Party (PDP) has condemned the result released by the Kaduna State Electoral Commission (KADSIECOM) declaring All Progressives Congress (APC) candidate winner of the re-run chairmanship election in Chikun Local Council of the state.

According to the result announced by the Returning Officer for KADSIECOM, Sani Mohammed, the APC swept the polls in the rescheduled chairmanship election in the council with 52,660 votes while the PDP polled 28,198.

Chairman of APC in Chikun Local Council, who spoke with journalists after the announcement of the result, said: “We never thought that smaller political parties like APGA and a host of others would have the chance to win a single vote.”

But officials of the PDP in the council said that contrary to the announcement of the result, elections in the four wards of the council did not hold.

Also, Chairman of the PDP in Chikun Local Council, Jonah Musa, said: “That the acclaimed returning officer declared the APC elected has no business whatsoever with yesterday’s election in Chikun Local Council.

“We condemn this act of desperation and we consider it a grievous offence that must not be swept under the carpet by the Nigerian Police Force.”

In another development, the APC in Delta State has vowed to mobilise two million votes to boost President Muhammadu Buhari’s second term ambition in the 2019 elections in the state.

A party leader in the state, Olorogun Otega Emerhor, who disclosed this to State House Correspondents yesterday after a closed-door meeting with the Chief of Staff to the President, Abba Kyari in the Presidential Villa, Abuja, said Buhari had done what former President Goodluck Jonathan could not do for the people of the state and the Niger Delta region in general, hence the resolve of the people to overwhelmingly offer their support for his second term bid in 2019. In a related vein, Oyo State APC has appealed to aggrieved members of the party to rescind their decision to dump the party and allow for reconciliation in the over-riding interest of the party.

The state chairman of the party, Chief Akin Oke, made the appeal yesterday while inaugu- rating the 35-member state executive committee of the APC in Ibadan.

Oke, who appealed to members of a faction of the party known as The Unity Forum being led by the Minister of Communications, Adebayo Shittu, who had threatened to quit the party, said rather than joining any other political party where they would be treated as newcomers, they should team up with the APC mainstream to build the party and put it in a good stead ahead of the 2019 general elections.