With barely four days to the governorship and states House of Assembly elections, the All Progressives Congress, on Tuesday alleged plans by Governor Muazu Babangida Aliyu of Niger State to rig the elections after he created a situation room at the Government House.
The party, in a statement by its Publicity Secretary, Jonathan Vatsa, said Aliyu has created a situation room at the Government House, Minna to monitor the unpatriotic acts to ensure the elections favours the Peoples Democratic Party, governorship candidate, Umar Nasko.
It was alleged that Aliyu entered into an agreement with the Independent National Electoral Commission in the state to stop the use of Card Readers in some areas of the state based on false technical reasons.
According to Vatsa: “The governor of Niger State, Dr. Muázu Babangida Aliyu, is planning to cause the disruption of the April 11 Gubernatorial and House of Assembly elections so as to favour his anointed PDP candidate by all means.
“This may be injurious to the collective will of the citizens of Niger State who are yearning for change and consequently cause danger to the peace we are enjoying now.
“The following are the uncovered strategies adopted by the Governor and his co-travellers to rig the coming elections.
“A team consisting of Commissioners, Permanent secretaries and some PDP state Exco had been constituted under the chairmanship of Prof, Mohammed Kuta Yahaya to execute the immoral act of sabotaging the elections with a mandate of must win.
“Part of the modus of operation is that they have concluded and entered into an arrangement with INEC in the state to stop the use of CARD READER machine in the Rural areas of the State on false technical reasons as failure of the card readers, so that it will enable them for rigging by way of completing the result sheets with false figures.
“And in LGAs where Card Readers are used, security men on duty will be compromised to fire tear gas after accreditation to cause disruption, so that the Agents of PDP will hijack the ballot papers, thump print and stuff them into ballot boxes.
“The INEC in connivance with the State governor, have decided and agreed to use the Adhoc Staff of INEC whose lists have already been compiled consisting NYSC, students and staff of FUT Minna, Federal Polytechnic, Bida and Federal College of Education Kontagora, to return undeclared results by changing figures.”
The APC warned that its supporters would rise to defend their mandate in the face of obnoxious plans by the state governor.