2023 Elections: Ruling APC Chieftains Pressurising Electoral Body, INEC Chairman To Shun Electronic Uploading Of Results

Buba Galadima, a former trustee on the board of the All Progressives Congress, has accused senior APC leaders of exerting pressure on Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, head of the Independent National Electoral Commission, to alter the electoral law.

In an interview with Channels TV on Thursday, Galadima claimed that some disloyal APC members were pressuring the INEC chairman not to use the bimodal voter registration system (BVAS) to transmit results.

He served as the National Secretary of the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC), an organization founded in the run-up to the 2011 general elections to support Muhammadu Buhari, the current president and a former military leader.

Later, Galadima and Buhari fought.

He said, “INEC chairman is under extensive pressure to tamper with the Electoral Act because the ruling party wanted to table an issue before the National Assembly such that they will force the chairman to write to National Assembly that it should not be compelling INEC to use the BVAS machine and this is the greatest disservice and an unpatriotic thing some elements in the ruling party are trying to put forward.

“They want to amend the Electoral Act, therefore, I want the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, Gen. Muhammadu Buhari to take note of some bad elements that want to smear his image when he leaves office.

“Listen to Senator Kabiru Gaya, the Chairman of Senate Committee on INEC who recently was on national television telling the world that INEC must be given an alternative either to use or not to use the BVAS because, in his own constituency of Daya which is in the middle of Kano State, there’s no network to transmit results. He’s only preparing the ground for what they have designed as a party because they know this election, they have lost.”

He said his party, the New Nigeria People’s Party (NNPP) is deeply rooted and that its presidential candidate, Rabiu Kwankwaso, remains the man to beat in the 2023 election.

He noted that despite being a new party, the NNPP has become a role model for other political parties.

“Let’s assume it’s only Kano, Kano has registered voters of over six million people and any candidate that has a base starting from six million votes is the candidate to beat. So why should you leave a candidate with a base and chase the one that’s floating in the air which has no political base?

“All of them… which of the candidates has any base apart from Kwankwaso?” he asked.

He said when the NNPP presidential campaign team went to Akwa Ibom, they pulled a crowd 10 times the crowd pulled during the Peoples Democratic Party’s southeast zonal rally.

“We are a new party; that’s why we made an innovation for the last two months to visit states to open our offices. Now we have become a role model that the APC and PDP are doing the same but they are 23 years old, it’s because they copied from us,” he said.

He also accused other political parties of buying permanent voter cards (PVCs) from the electorate to erode Kwankwaso’s base, adding that with the help of Kwankwasiyya guards stationed in all northwestern states, there have been arrests.

He said those arrested were handed over to the police.

“If we are not the party to beat, why should other political parties budget billions of naira to buy PVCs all over the country because they thought the Talakawas who follow Kwankwaso must be disenfranchised not by rhetorics or by the campaign but by buying their PVCs off. This is what is happening and security agencies are not doing their jobs,” Galadima said.

Galadima also said there’s no plan for NNPP to merge with another party as Kwankwaso’s “majority cannot work with another party’s minority”.

He said, “How can the majority work for the minority? All the other parties are minorities as far as NNPP is concerned.

“Kwankwaso is the man to beat in this election and all the candidates put together, all of them let them produce one candidate and let there be a free and fair election. As far as Nigerians will vote, Kwankwaso will be the president.”

He expressed confidence that the NNPP will win in all northern states and win some of the southern states to emerge as the president of Nigeria.

Galadima added that the PDP is nonexistent in the South because of its internal crisis and the emergence of the Labour Party’s presidential candidate, Peter Obi.

He said, “First, PDP is not even on the ballot because the strength of the PDP is in the South-East which has been eroded by Peter Obi,l. The strength of the PDP next is in the South-South with (Governor Nyesom) Wike never supporting Atiku, South-South is gone.

“And with Udom (Emmanuel) not picked as the vice-presidential candidate, I don’t think he can use his money to counter Wike’s influence in the South-East and Wike is not only strong in the South-East, Wike commands 14 states of Nigeria for PDP; all of them follow him. Five serving governors, nine gubernatorial candidates outside PDP-controlled states all belong to Wike. It is what Wike decides that will happen in the PDP.

“In the North-East, (it is) completely Kwankwaso because he will win Taraba, Adamawa, Gombe, Bauchi including governorship.

“He will win the North Central, he will win the West; both combined is over 50 million voters and he will poach the South-South, part of South-East and also part of South-West. I assure you that all Nigerians who desire freedom, development, progress, their children should go to school, health services have no other person to vote for except Senator Rabiu Kwankwaso.”