The New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP) and the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Kano on Saturday traded blame over the disruptions and irregularities that marred the House of Assembly rerun polls.
The disruptions and irregularities, including the hijacking of electoral materials resulting in violence, led to the suspension of the election in the Kunchi/Tsanyawa constituency of the state by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).
While the NNPP accused the APC of “brutally attacking” its members at some polling units in the affected constituency, the latter said the NNPP allegedly snatched election materials from INEC officials and ran with them.
Kano Chairman of the NNPP, Hashim Suleiman Dungurawa, accused the APC of perpetrating the violence in a statement.
“We noticed, with dismay, the sporadic attacks on the unsuspecting voters with the aim of disenfranchising them from exercising their civic rights.
“Since last night, we sighted the deployment of thousands of thugs hired by the APC to distract the election process,” Dr. Dungurawa said.
In a swift reaction, APC secretary Zakari Sarina said there would be no rerun election held in Kano.
Sarina described the NNPP’s comment as “baseless,” asking the NNPP chairman to bury his head in shame for his “misleading statement.”
He alleged that NNPP’s hired hoodlums were deployed across the polling units preventing voters legitimate right to vote.
He said: ”NNPP took over all the entire polling units in Kunchi/Tsanyawa and turned themselves into agents of APC, PDP and even denied INEC the statutory duty because they hijacked the materials and wrote results. Thank God the election has been canceled.”