Gov Yahaya apologises to Christians in Gombe

The governor of Gombe State, Muhammadu Yahaya, apologized to the Christian faithful’s in the state on Saturday.

According to our correspondent, there have been audiovisuals and letters distributed in public spaces stating that the governor despises the religion and imploring believers to stop supporting him on March 11, 2023.

However, among the complaints leveled at the administration are the choice of the Mai Tangle stool and the appointment of Beatrice Iliya as Chief Judge.

The governor emphasized that elections “should be achievement oriented and infrastructural development that has direct impact to the people as a guiding consideration” rather than being based on feelings.

If elected into office, he also expressed regret to the Christian community for any wrongdoing committed against them and vowed not to repeat it during his second term in office.

According to him, “As in every human endeavour me and this administration might have committed errors. I request the gathering to forgive and chart a new course for continued development of the state.”

While thanking the people for giving him their support in 2019, he listed some of his administration’s accomplishments, such as the provision of high-quality healthcare facilities, educational advancement, improved road infrastructure, and, most importantly, the state’s pervasive peace and security.

The governor added that when he took office in 2019, he inherited a massive amount of debt and crumbling infrastructure in all sectors, which forced his administration to act quickly to fix them during its first term.

He also urged the Christian community to vote for him once more in order to preserve the state’s progress.

In order to link the state with the central government and take use of its inherent advantages, he utilized the occasion to urge the population to turn out in droves to vote for the APC’s candidates in the upcoming elections.

Zubair Umar, the Director-General of the APC Campaign Organization, had stated that the interactive meeting was necessary to clarify some misunderstandings and impressions regarding the State Governor and the administration. He urged those present to be sincere in their remarks.

Professor Ibrahim Njodi, secretary to the state government, thanked the Christian community for attending the conference in large numbers and warned them to ignore any bad audiovisual messages that are influenced by media views.

Additionally speaking, Rev. Abare Kalla, the chairman of the North East CAN, praised the governor’s foresight in calling the meeting, his candor in clearing up any misperceptions, and his request for pardon from the Christian community for any wrongdoing on his part or by the policies and programs of his administration.

At the conclusion of the interactive meeting, the Christian community unanimously decided to pardon the governor and vowed to work tirelessly on his behalf to win re-election for a second term.

Benue PDP accuses INEC of violating electoral law, rejects election results 

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has been accused of violating the Electoral Act by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Benue State, which they claim has a negative impact on the credibility of the recently held presidential and National Assembly elections.

As a political party and a significant participant in Nigeria’s democratic process, it is our opinion that provisions of the Electoral Act (2022 As Amended) in Sections 60 (5) and 148, which give INEC the authority to establish guidelines for the conduct of the elections, were grossly violated. This accusation was made by the party’s chairman, Isaac Mffo, during a press conference on the results of the elections.

“The PDP in Benue State rejects the outcome of both the presidential and National Assembly elections held in certain local government areas of the state on 25th February, 2023, for the reason of the breaches of law cited above.

“The party had shortly after the said elections issued a statement to the effect that it had mandated its legal department to study reports received from its agents who had been deployed to the over 5000 polling units across the state.

“After due consideration of the findings by the legal department, it is the position of our great party, the PDP, that the process of conducting both the presidential and National Assembly elections in Benue State did not conform with the standards stipulated in the enabling laws.

“In this regard, we consider it a matter of grave concern that Clauses 38 and 93 of the INEC Regulations and Guidelines for the Conduct of Election, 2022, which make mandatory the transmission of election results electronically from the polling units to the INEC Server were serially flouted.”