Candidate of the New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP) in the FCT 2023 Senatorial election, Ahmad Tijani, has rejected Ireti Kingibe as Senator – elect for the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).
Tijani’s rejection of result of the election conducted by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), on February 25, came a week after the candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the election, Senator Philip Tanimu Aduda, kicked against the result.
Addressing the press in Abuja, Thursday March 23, the NNPP candidate said it was wrong for INEC to have declared Kingibe as winner of the election which was full of infractions like over-voting and cancellation of results in many of the 62 wards across the six area councils.
He said he has through his lawyers, proceeded to the tribunal to seek redress.
Tijani alleged that the candidate of Labour Party (LP) Ireti Kingibe, who was declared winner by INEC actually emerged through electoral malpractices.
He said, “All our efforts were sabotaged and undermined. I’m not trying to levy allegations but it is clear to everybody in FCT that Labour Party and the INEC played some roles in sabotaging our efforts in NNPP.”
He alleged that the INEC unilaterally changed the logo of the party thereby creating serious confusion on the day of the election.
The NNPP candidate said, “Our logo was changed on the ballot papers and this made NNPP to lose massive votes That is why I am challenging the result that led to the emergence of Ireti Kingibe as the Senator-Elect.
“The people of FCT did not elect her. They didn’t know Ireti Kingibe, they didn’t vote for her. This is going to cause a lot of issues especially in FCT. This is where the seat of power is.
“This action is not going to drive peace, It is only going to lead to violence over the next four years which is not what we want as a nation.”
The NNPP Senatorial candidate further alleged that the logo of his party was omitted in the ballot papers sent to some areas.
He added that INEC allegedly failed to print enough tags for the NNPP agents which deprived the party, the opportunity to have representatives in most polling units.
“A day to the election, they told us they forgot to print the entire tags for FCT. We were trying to improvise, the following morning, we saw other party agents with their tags.
“By the time our agents who had been trained to protect their votes, went to their polling units to do their assignment they were sent away because they had no tags.
“About 90 per cent of our agents were not able to conduct their assignment while the Labour Party and their agents were seen moving around with a tag that had both our logo and that of LP.
“We are highly disappointed in LP.and we are not going to relent. We have to seek for justice not just for ourselves , our people or our supporters but for our democracy”, he said .
He however urged his party loyalists to remain calm while the party is prosecuting the case at the Court.
