Reports by Joshua Apine, Adelokun Adelakin, Judith Agada
Nigerian Concord Newspaper can authoritatively report that last Saturday’s All Progressives Congress primaries elections in Benue State were manipulated against Senator George Akume’s group. A case in point is the contest between the incumbent, Hon Asema Achado and Engr. Terhemba Nongo.
According to reports from our reporters who monitored the exercise both in Gwer East and Gwer West on Saturday, the self-acclaimed winner of the exercise, Engineer Terhemba Nongo lost in his own Council Ward to Hon Asema Achado.
However, official and certified results which were reliably given to our reporters by officials of the Independent National Electoral Commission indicated that Achado massively defeated Nongu in the primaries.
According to the official results, Achado also defeated Nongu in his (Nongu) own Ward .
However, our reporters who were on ground to monitor the exercise reported that it was only in Achado’s local government that primaries were held while fake results were fabricated in the other local government in favour of Terhemba Nongo.
Earlier, it was reported by our reporters that election materials were handed over to Governor Hyacinth Alia’s Point men who were also contestants but it took the intervention of determined youths to get the right things done before the exercise commenced on Saturday
Apart from that, members of the APC Electoral Committee from Abuja were camped inside the Benue State Government House, and they weren’t accessible to other aspirants before or after the elections.
“Yes, they came from Abuja and were moved straight to the Government House where they were camped. And after the exercise, they were also moved back to the Government House” some aggrieved members of the party told our reporters.
Meanwhile, while a false declaration was made on the night of the primaries, in the parlour of the Gwer Local Government Council Chairman Mr Adi, that Terhemba Nongo was the winner of the election, Hon Asema Achado was legitimately declared winner on Sunday, at the party Secretariat, in the morning, having scored the highest votes at the primaries, and this was done in the presence of officials of the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, security officials from the Nigerian Police, Civil Defence and the DSS and members of the party from both Gwer East and Gwer West Local Governments.
Investigation by this newspaper showed that the results which Engr. Terhemba Nongu was parading were fake as they were fabricated on the night of the primaries.
Recall that as a result of these irregularities, the National Working Committee of the All Progressive Congress condemned announcement of results by the Committee, noting that all results would be announced together by the party in Abuja immediately after the Governorship primaries..