ADC denies participating in Yobe LG polls
By Bala Dauda, Damaturu
The African Democratic Congress ( ADC) has denied a viral publication alleging that the party had participated in the June 9 local government elections in Yobe.
Umar Kalli, state ADC Chairman, made the rebuttal in a statement in Damaturu on Wednesday.
He said the text was a handiwork of mischief makers bent on misleading members of the public.
“ Our attention has been drawn to social media platforms that our party (ADC) is among the 9 political parties that participated in the election, which is not true,” he said.
Kalli advised the general public to disregard the text, saying that the party had since gone to court to challenge the conduct of the election.
“ While section 4 of the 1999 constitution gives the State Independent Electoral Commissions (SIECs) power to organize, undertake, and supervise all elections to local government councils within the state.
“ Section 29 (1) of the Electoral Act 2022, tasked the political parties to hold primary and submit the list of candidates to the electoral commission not later than 180 days before the date appointed for a general election.
“ It is important to know that, ADC as a registered political party has not been properly informed by the YSIEC about the local government election for the submission of candidates for Chairmanship and Councillorships positions, which is a violation of the 2022 electoral act.
“ As a result, we immediately wrote a letter to the Electoral Commission demanding the extension of local government elections scheduled to be held on 25 May/June 2024 to regularize the process in line with the 2022 electoral act, but to our greatest dismay, the commission ignored our request and proceed with the election,” he said.
The chairman said he was surprised to discover that the ADC logo appeared on the ballot papers during the election, despite the party not being officially served notice of the election to submit candidates.
“ The same YSIEC that refused to recognize the existence of ADC as a political party, failure to serve six months notice for the party to submit its candidates, it’s the same electoral commission that produces ballot paper with ADC’s logo knowing fully well that the party has no candidates in the election,” he said.
In a swift reaction, Dr Mamman Mohammed, Chairman, State Independent Electoral Commission ( SIEC) said he was not aware of any court case between the ADC and the commission.
He said the claim that the party was not informed about the election was false, adding that all political parties were given one year notice before the election.
Mohammed explained that the commission ensured that names and logos of all political parties appeared on the ballot papers since the commission did not the know parties that would be interested in participating in the election or not.
