The All Progressives Congress (APC) in Niger State has rejected the result which gave victory to the candidate of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Saturday’s re-run senatorial bye-election in Niger North.
The Publicity Secretary of the party, Mr. Jonathan Vatsa in his reaction in Minna said that the result announced by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) in the early hours of Sunday was “unacceptable” to the party.
According to him “the party is currently studying the result and will make its position known, but for now the result is unacceptable”.
“We (APC) are yet to take a decision on the outcome of the by-election, all I know for now is that the result announced by INEC is not acceptable and in due course the official position of the party will be announced.
“The next line of action on the by-election will be taken after consultations at the state level. We are also in touch with the national headquarters of the party and our position will be made known soon”.
Vatsa also condemned the statements made by the state governor, Dr. Mu’azu Babangida Aliyu who said “the victory for PDP was a reflection of the confidence the people have in the party when he knew that the conduct of the election contravened the Electoral Act.
“It is a known fact that the outcome of the by-election was a total rigging between PDP and INEC. It took a party that has been in power for over 15 years to use money to induce, use fake security agents to intimidate the electorates and used INEC to doctor the results to ‘win’ by-election
“The governor has no moral right to speak because he lost the last by-election in his unit, ward and local government. In fact Governor Aliyu has never won any election in his local government, ward and unit”.