Plateau PDP State Campaign Council
Media and Publicity Committee

Press Statement

*DESPERATE TIMES, DESPERATE MEASURES*

The Plateau PDP State Campaign Council is aware of the meetings between the Benue State Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC) who is an indigene of Kanke Local Government Area and the Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC) of Plateau State over the weekend.

Information at our disposal indicates that the meetings, which held at the INEC office in Jos were ostensibly to work out strategies to aid the current governor of Plateau on Saturday during the elections.

Plateau PDP Chairman Hon Damishi Sango had last week criticised the Resident Electoral Commissioner of the State Alhaji Husseini Halilu Pai for compromising his position and raising tension in the state.

He accused the REC of allowing the arbitrary cancellation of results in many PDP strongholds thus leading to inconclusive elections or attempting to give PDP’s victory to APC.

An insider familiar with the workings of the strategies of the Lalong administration has said

“This government is willing and very ready to do anything, I mean anything, to retain power in the March 9, 2019 governorship election.”

And that “anything" includes the meetings between the two Resident Electoral Commissioners, vote-buying, box snatching, monetary inducement of INEC staff, deployment of faulty card readers in PDP strongholds, using fake score sheets or voting without result sheets, causing confusion or fights in Polling Units that could lead to vote cancellation and the outright buying and intimidation of PDP agents.

Other measures pencilled for implementation include frustrating the movements of the PDP governorship candidate Senator JT Useni and some key PDP stakeholders, and deploying the military to intimidate voters and harass party agents to keep them away from collation centres.

The insiders said the “anything” also includes instigating fatal confrontations between opposing political parties where necessary.

We have been reliably informed that these extreme and unconstitutional measures are being contemplated because the governor is personally not prepared in any way to concede defeat – it is not an option to him and his handlers.

In addition, he is being perceived by Abuja as a weakling for letting go of Plateau North Senatorial seat to PDP instead of declaring APC as winner and letting the heavens fall.

The campaign council is particularly concerned at some reports by residents that some military personnel have visited the Government Secondary School Tudun Wada used as ward collation centre and have asked for two classrooms to pitch their camp for four days to the elections.

It is a well -established fact in our nation that soldiers are not to be deployed for election purposes.

The campaign therefore council urges PDP supporters to raise their level of alertness this week of election to frustrate APC’s elaborate rigging plans.

It assures that all steps are being taken on the many issues that are being reported daily.

Chairman of the Council, Honourable Damishi Sango has declared that

"Distinguished Senator JT Useni as our gubernatorial Candidate will provide the needed leadership to make sure that no one steals our mandate."


Yiljap Abraham
Chairman
Media and Publicity
03.03. 2019

Governor Simon Lalong of the All Progressives Congress has won the Plateau State governorship election, following the supplementary poll held on Saturday.

Lalong was declared the winner by the Returning Officer in the state, Prof Richard Kimbir, after scoring 595,582 votes to defeat 23 other candidates, including the Peoples Democratic Party standard-bearer, Jeremiah Useni, who garnered 546,813.

Kimbir stated that a total of 1,159,954 valid votes were recorded while 16,188 were rejected, saying 1,176,142 was the total number of votes cast.

The results for the nine LGAs that took part in the supplementary poll, including Barkin Ladi, Bassa, Bokkos, Jos North, Kanam, Langtang South, Mangu, Pankshin and Shendam, showed that Lalong scored 12,327 new votes, while the candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, Jeremiah Useni, earned 8,487. There was no cancellation of results recorded.

Source: https://punchng.com/breaking-inec-declares-apcs-lalong-winner-of-plateau-governorship-election