In the House of Representatives collation center for the Bogoro/Dass/Tafawa Balewa Constituency in Bununu town, Bauchi State, suspected thugs of the All Progressives Congress attacked supporters of the Peoples Democratic Party, inflicting various degrees of damage on more than 10 vehicles.
Iliya Habila, a former senior special assistant on media to Yakubu Dogara, the outgoing Speaker of the House of Representatives, claimed in a press interview that the armed-to-the-teeth thugs nearly lynched him.
Former Bogoro Local Government Area Chairman and PDP chieftain Habila, who also addressed to journalists in the state, claimed that violence and irregularities marred the constituency poll.
Ja'afar Leko of the All Progressives Congress beat over Kefas Magaji of the PDP as the election's victor, according to the Independent National Electoral Commission. Dogara, who is serving as the district's representative for the fourth time, is supporting Leko.
Nevertheless, Habila, a former journalist who is now running for office and a supporter of the PDP candidate, claimed that they had been cheated out of the race.
"Being a PDP member and one of Kefas Magaji's major backers, we were there to see the results being tallied when suddenly, we saw goons being transported to Bununu in trucks. We were taken aback by the way in which the collation center was moved from Zwall to Bununu. Later that night, we realized that the transfer of the collation center was clearly done to create uncertainty so that they could carry out their terrible plans.
They kept the election officials hostage for hours, held security agencies hostage for hours, and were committing this kind of depravity just around the corner from a primary school. In actuality, it took the assistance of military personnel to go and bring out the fabricated results, and later on, they began inflicting fear on everyone who they believed to be apart from them. I also barely made it out alive.
"They knew it was a good opportunity for them to reveal the manufactured results they had after the majority of our supporters had been driven away. In reality, they made a very nocturnal announcement of the results on Monday at around 1am, and this is unacceptable. He was supposed to be declared the winner, but it was a daylight heist, so we were cheated out of this victory.
He also mentioned how many victims had to flee for their life after suffering injuries. Moreover, almost 10 automobiles were completely wrecked. He said that goons from local areas were sent in to incite mayhem and skew the election.
The PDP candidate, who was formerly the governor of Bauchi State's special adviser on legal matters, also spoke out against the election's outcome and vowed to fight for his mandate in court.
In all polling places, with the exception of a handful that had difficulties up until the results were tallied, according to the former chairman of the Tafawa Balewa LGA Caretaker Committee, voting was orderly.
He explained, "At the time of collation, 30 of the wards brought in their results in good time since immediately after the election, counting commenced and results started rolling in late in the evening (on Saturday). Unexpectedly, results were delayed in Bununu ward, which serves as the hub for the three LGAs.
"Results from the remaining electoral wards of the LGAs were sent the following morning, which was Sunday, however Bununu ward was not submitted until around 6 or 7 pm on Sunday, which was quite rare.
"The collation center's location was extremely congested due to the presence of thugs and the entrance's thick barricade, which prevented anyone from seeing what was happening. They collected the results from reports approximately five times; surprisingly, when the collation officer brought the results from the three LGAs to the Bununu collation center, the results were rejected due to improper computation and several irregularities.
"For the first time, the Electoral Officer for Tafawa Balewa took over the entire exercise instead of letting the Presiding Officers, who are the masters of election results, compute the results, and at the end of the day, they came up with a result that was not in consonance with the votes that were cast in that ward."
Before the Bununu outcome was made public, "thugs were recruited who were fully armed with AK-47, cutlasses and machetes," according to Magaji. When they announced the results from Bununu at that time, it was late at night and they were aware that the APC would undoubtedly lose that poll if they announced the results at the time they were scheduled to. Thus, they made sure that the election outcome was delayed, and that is the area in which we are not entirely at ease.
He claimed that despite the delays and the "manipulations that they did in the election result," they identified examples of over-voting and that they refused to have the results canceled as a result.
"According to the complete results they released, the APC candidate won the election by around 1,800 votes over me, but if they had accurately counted the ballots, I would have won by a wide margin. To guarantee that this lawsuit is pursued via the proper channels in order to restore my mandate, we are bringing it before the electoral tribunal, he added.