APC Primary Committee Members Escape Mob Attack In Taraba

Police in Taraba have rescued members of the Primary Election Committee of the All Progressive Congress (APC) sent to conduct the elections for the party’s senatorial tickets in the state.

The members were reportedly ambushed and almost lynched by aggrieved party members on Saturday for allegedly conniving with a faction of the party to manipulate the outcomes of the exercise.

Channels Television gathered that the committee members led by Muhammad Alkali were on their way from Yola in Adamawa when they were stopped at a point – some a few kilometres to Jalingo –by a faction of aspirants who allegedly asked that the election result sheets be handed over to them.

Some party members who got a wind of the incident were said to have rushed to the scene and threatened to lynch the members of the committee, but the quick intervention of the police who came to their rescue.

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Shortly after the incident, the secretary of the committee, Yahaya Suleiman, read out a resolution reached by the aspirants while addressing reporters at the police headquarters in the state capital.

“We are not under duress to address you, but here are the resolutions reached; that result sheets were not made available to us from the APC National Secretariat,” he said. “That the results were sent and received by Taraba State APC Chairman earlier and on arrival, we were informed that the result sheets were vandalised and that soft copies were consequently sent to us for the primary election.

“That indirect mode of primary elections be adopted for northern and central senatorial zones, while the southern zone shall use the direct mode for senatorial primary elections.”

Elsewhere, two results emerged at the just-concluded House of Representative primary with losers threatening legal action if internal mechanisms of resolution fail.

While a former Speaker of the Taraba State House of Assembly, Mark Useni, was declared the winner of the primary for Donga, Takum Ussa, and Yangtu Special Development Area in one of the results, one Abubakar Umar emerged as the party’s candidate in the same constituency in another result.