Sen Marafa hails INEC for rejecting APC candidates in Zamfara, asks Buhari to suspend campaign in state

A senator of the All Progressives Congress (APC), representing Zamfara Central, Kabir Marafa, has expressed joy that the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) insisted that candidates of his party in the state will not be part of the 2019 elections.

The senator, who stated this when he addressed newsmen in Abuja on Thursday, urged President Muhammadu Buhari to suspend his proposed campaign in Zamfara State on Sunday.

Marafa, who is the chairman Senate Committee on Petroleum Resources (Downstream), said he would personally submit a letter to Buhari to that effect.

He said, “I urge President Muhammadu Buhari to suspend his proposed campaign to Zamfara State on Sunday. I will personally hand over a letter on the matter to him.

“However, if the President insists on going for the rally in Zamfara on Sunday, there is no problem. Let (Governor) Yari hold his rally on Sunday, we will organise our own later and people will see who the people are supporting.

“We don’t care if the President attends our own rally later or not. We will organise a mega rally that will be given live coverage so that the whole World will see that we are very popular among our people.”

The senator was one of the governorship aspirants of the APC in the state. He said the decision of INEC to maintain its earlier decision on Zamfara was the right thing to do.

Recall that a Zamfara State High Court presided over by Justice Muhammad Shinkafi had last week Friday in Gusau, delivered a judgment which asked the INEC to allow the APC candidates to participate in the election.

However, a Federal High Court presided over by Justice Ijeoma Ojukwu in Abuja same day held that the electoral body acted within its powers to reject the list of candidates presented to it by the party.

INEC in a statement by its National Commissioner in charge of Information and Voter Education, Mr. Festus Okoye, on Wednesday, after studying the two judgments, declared that its  position on the matter remains.

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“The commission has decided to maintain its original position that the party in question did not conduct primaries, therefore, in line with Section 87 of the Electoral Act of 2010 ( as amended), not eligible to field candidates.

“This shows that the commission is not doing the bidding of any of the parties involved in our intra-party squabble. From the beginning, the commission took a weighty but truthful position on the Zamfara APC primaries logjam, despite the fact that our party is the ruling political party.

“The development has shown that the commission will conduct credible, fair and transparent polls. We are urging the commission to always stand by the truth, no matter who is involved,” INEC said.

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