Taraba voters reject Nigeria's first female governor

Taraba voters reject Nigeria's first female governor

Sunday, April 26, 2015 11:10 am


Senator Aisha Jummai Alhassan

Senator Aisha Jummai Alhassan

Senator Aisha Jummai Al-Hassan, the candidate of the All Progressives Congress in the north eastern Nigerian state of Taraba has been muscled out of the governorship race in the state, by her male rival, Darius Ishaku of the Peoples Democratic Party.

Ishaku completed the thrashing of the woman in the supplementary election held in some local councils in the state on Saturday.

The cumulative results of the two elections showed Ishaku clinching the governorship seat with 360,318 votes. Mama Taraba, the nickname of Senator Aisha, got 275,985 votes.

The Independent National Electoral Commission will soon declare Darius Ishaku, the governor-elect and Senator Aisha Jummai Alhassan, will have to wait another four years to contest for the seat again.

And with her loss, also goes Nigeria’s dream of producing the first elected female governor.

The macho men in PDP did not make the contest easy for Aisha, with many odds stacked against her. She shared her experience told a press conference in Abuja last week about the electoral malpractice carried out in the state on 11 April.

“In many Wards cutting across many Local Governments, the elections did not hold in accordance with INEC guidelines.

“Despite several reports, complaints and protests to INEC ( SPOs, EOs, REC and ROs) by our party field officers, myself and the state party chairman on the irregularities while going on and after, at collation levels, the INEC failed to react and went ahead to accept most of the flawed results.

“The affected Local Governments are: Wukari, Kurmi, Yorro, Karim Lamido, Ardo Kola, Sardauna, Zing, Bali, Lau, Donga and Takum. That’s eleven out of the sixteen local governments in which various irregularities were recorded in the State. After much pressure and complaints at the state collation center the INEC cancelled only the results of Donga local government and some few units in the remaining local governments complained of, leaving a chunk of results of other areas complained of.

“Here is a summary of the problems with the elections in the listed local governments:

1. Widespread non-use of Card Readers or Destruction of the machines.
2. Non accreditation of voters
3. Subversion of the rights of the people to exercise their franchise
4. The use of security agencies in aid of the PDP
5. Kidnap of electoral officials by the PDP with the help of security agencies.
6. Ballot stuffing
7. Collation of results in non-INEC designated areas
8. The non delivery of electoral materials in many parts of the Local Governments listed above
9. The apparent complicity of INEC officials at all levels in the state
10. The resort to vote allocations on results sheets
11. And the violence that led to injuries and loss of lives

“Let me now give some specific instances in some of the Local Governments listed above

“At Jibu Ward in Wukari: Voting took place in only three out of 27 polling units.
At Bantaje Ward also in Wukari, voting took place in only 11 out of 56 polling units, but results for all the polling units were returned.

“In Kurmi, Card Readers were not used at all and election did not take place. The PDP simply relied on security agencies to rig the polls and write results.

“In Yorro, Voting materials were snatched while residences of PDP officials were used for ballot stuffing and writing results. APC agents were brutally beaten and chased out of voting centers.

For Aisha, the last may not have been heard about the governorship election in the state. The courts may actually decide who really won the election: Ishaku or Jummai Aisha Alhassan?


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One Comment

  • GOK says:

    Well done Mama Taraba! ! You are a role model indeed…

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