By Israel Bulus, Kaduna
The Kauru state House of Assembly supplementary elections that held in Kahuta polling unit has been marred with vote buying, intimidation, teargassing and beating of Journalists by thugs allegedly hired by the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC).
It would be recalled that the election was declared inconclusive on March 18, 2023.
However, the PDP Local Government Collation Officer, Barrister Simon Arabo who refused to sign the result, described it as day light robbery.
PUNCH reports that in Kahuta Polling Unit of Kwasam Ward which had 995 registered voters in the two wards where the supplementary elections were conducted, the election was marred by voting buying and voter intimidation by thugs who intermittently, chased away voters while queuing to vote including some journalists who were also attacked while monitoring the election.
Some voters who ran to their homes, were not so lucky enough, as the thugs who were seeing wielding dangerous weapons such as sticks, knives and cudgels, also followed and beat them up, thereby disenfranchising most of them from voting, while the police use tear gas to disperse the invading thugs.
Our Correspondent gathered that the thugs were allegedly brought on Friday night in two Sharon Vehicles and took vantage positions with the aimed to disrupt the process and the conduct of the election.
Some of the military who were deployed and restored sanity in the premises and refused to compromise on the conduct of the election were later withdrawn.
Immediately the military left the scene, thugs returned the venue wielding sophisticated weapons while the Police look hapeless.
Meanwhile, Barnabas Haruna DanMaigona of the APC was declared winner of the Kauri/Chawai State House of Assembly Constituency, following the Saturday’s supplementary election.
He polled 23,687 votes to defeat his PDP opponent, Yohanna Gandu Chawai who came second with 23,656 votes in the keenly contest, with the Labour Party Candidate, Adamu Bala who emerged a distant 3rd with 6,158 votes, as announced by the State Assembly Returning Officer, Professor Muhammad Sani Salau,
The APC State party Secretary, Yahaya Baba Pate who served as the APC Agent called for all and sundry to support the member-elect for the desired dividends of democracy to abound for effective representation.
Samuel Arabo, the PDP collection officer for the re-run House of Assembly election in Karau local government area described the election was a real scandal, saying, “The eligible voters were intimidated by thugs who caused confusion in the place and did not allow the voters to exercise their franchise. The voters were denied the opportunity to cast their votes because when PDP was leading, the only way the APC could do was to caused confusion through their thugs and as a result of the whole confusion, PDP did not sign the result.”
The PDP House of Assembly for Chawai/Kauru, Yohana Chawai described the re-run election as the best movie of year, 2023, saying that it was a comedy that was marked with action thereby getting what they wanted at all cost.
He expressed gratitude for the party to have given him the chance to fly the party’s ticket in the 2023 House of Assembly in the local government and called on all party supporters to remain calm.
