…IPAC insist no party will participate the election
Barely 48 hours to the conduct of Plateau North senatorial district and Bassa-Jos North Federal Constituency rerun elections slated for Saturday 3rd February, 2024, tension and apprehension brewed as Independent Electoral Commission (INEC) excluded Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) from participation.
The INEC commissioner in charged of North Central, Muhammad Haruna, made this known to newsmen on Thursday after receiving the sensitive materials for the elections from Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, zonal branch Jos.
He said the security will do all that is possible to ensure there is peace, the police and other security agencies will do all that is possible to ensure that material are secured from bring tampered with and vandalised.
“We had a meeting with political parties right before now and told them in a return disqualified candidate and political party cannot participated, this is an established law, the Supreme court has ruled about it in Labour versus INEC several years ago and PDP was a beneficiary of this several years ago.
“INEC is a law abiding institution, we never flaut and law. We call a meeting of all political parties, if PDP went to court and federal high court declined jurisdiction what that simply means is that the ruling by the Court of Appeal subsist and we have to obey the court, our hands are tight by court in this regard. What the court said is what we are going to do whether it is right or wrong unless it is set aside.
Daily Champion reports that, the Appeal Court in Abuja under Honourable Justice Williams-Dawodu panel sometimes on 22 October, 2023, nullified the elections of former Senate minority leader, Simon Mwadkwon and member representing Jos North-Bassa Federal Constituency, Musa Agah on the ground that PDP doesn’t have a valid in Plateau.
The Appellate Court also directed INEC to conduct rerun elections within 90 days and all political parties should participate.
However, the Inter Party Advisory Council (IPAC) Plateau state have vowed that no political party will participate the rerun elections scheduled for 3rd February,2023, except all parties were included non the ballot.
Abubakar Dogara, IPAC chairman Plateau State who spoke with newsmen after inspection of sensitive election materials revealed they held meeting with INEC on the 9th January, 2024, in which INEC promised to serve with a list of parties that would participate the elections but failed to do so.
According to him, “The position of the IPAC is that it is either PDP participated in the election or all parties will not take part because the Appeal Court said all political parties should participate in the election.
“We noticed that one of us is not on the ballot papers and therefore we sat down and agree that an injury to one is an injury to all therefore, if PDP is no participating no political party will participate.
“We were not informed that one of us will not be part of the election, we were told that list of party that will take part in the election will be forwarded to us within a week from the day we meet with INEC since 9th January, 2024.
“We prefer peace on the Plateau than election or anything, we know how fragile the issue of peace is on the Plateau, we are trying to avert any thing that will take us to the doom days.
