The two gubernatorial aspirants of the People’s Democratic Party, Engr. Ibrahim Shehu and Hafiz AliyuNahuche had forwarded a letter of appeal to the National Chairman of the PDP over alleged irregularities discovered in the conduct of the fresh primary election held on the 23rd of September 2022.
“We the following aspirant namely; Dr. Ibrahim Shehu Gusau and Aliyu Hafiz Muhammad who contested for the just concluded Governorship Primary Election in Gusau, Zamfara State and want to present this appeal against the primary election reconducted by the PDP in respect of Zamfara state”.
The aspirants in a joint appeal alleged that the fresh primary election conducted by the party on Friday the 24th of September 2022 was against the extant laws, especially Electoral Act, PDP constitution and PDP Electoral guidelines.
“We are aggrieved by the contraventions and hereby appeal against the conduct of the primary election due to the obvious breach of the mandatory provisions of the Electoral Act, 2022 and Electoral Guidelines of the People’s Democratic Party”.
They argued in their appeal that section 182(1) provided that PDP shall give INEC (21) day notice before the conduct of its primary election, but noted that such provision of the Electoral Act was not satisfactorily followed.
They said instead the party wrote a letter of three days notice to the INEC on the 20th September 2022 notifying the electoral body of its intention to conduct fresh primaries on the 23rd of September 2022.
They also alleged that the statutory (7) seven days notice that are supposed to be issued to the aspirants as provided for by the party constitution were also not issued.
According to the aspirants, “the issuance of the seven days notice to aspirants is mandatory by virtue of the provision of Part V (8) (a) of the Electoral Guidelines of the People’s Democratic Party’s Electoral Guidelines for Primary”.
“The failure by the Party to comply with the above mandatory requirements of notice has violated the provision of Part V (8)(a) of the PDP Electoral Guidelines for Primary Elections and thus affected our constitutional rights to vote and to be voted for, thereby making the election a nullity”.
“Considering the above violation of the extant laws by the Party, we have not been fairly treated in the whole process deployed in the conduct of the gubernatorial primary election in Zamfara State held on Friday 23 September 2022”.
“For the above reasons, we hereby appeal to your good office to regularize and ensure that justice is done to save the good name and integrity of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) whose Motto is “JUSTICE, UNITY AND PROGRESS”
