There were several gunshots at the Niger State secretariat of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), the venue of the primary election for the House of Representatives for Chanchaga Federal Constituency in the early hours of Saturday as supporters protested against alleged change of delegates’ list.
Daily Trust reports that the gunshots were fired by security operatives who tried to disperse the angry supporters.
The protesters had alleged that some delegates were removed from the list.
One of the protesters, Saidu Balarabe from Makera ward in Chanchaga Local Government area said that the delegates’ list was changed three times before the primaries.
Balarabe said, “My wife and my younger brother whose names were on the original list were removed. We didn’t know why they did that. But what we are asking for is that let there be transparency in the primaries.
“Those whose names were in the original delegates’ list were at the venue on Friday to vote, they didn’t let them in while the faces we saw as delegates were not known to us.”
He also said that before the primaries was shifted to Saturday, it was moved to three different locations.
According to him, the primaries was moved from the Local Government party secretariat to the Justice Idris Legbo Kitigi International Conference Centre, and then, moved the State party secretariat.
Balarabe explained that the security operatives fired the gunshot because party supporters could not back out on their demands for fairness in the exercise.
Similarly, another member of the party, Umar Haruna, from Limawa ‘A’ Ward, threatened that if the original delegates’ list was not adopted for the primaries, the party supporters would be left with no choice but to work against the APC in the 2023 general elections.
Meanwhile, a similar scenario played out at about 11:48am on Saturday as supporters of the APC from Gbako Local Government Area of the state stormed the State secretariat of the party to protest the alteration of the State House of Assembly delegates list.
It was gathered that one of the aspirants, Mohammed D. Mohammed Pichiko said that the primary election was not conducted but a winner was declared after the exercise was postponed.
However, APC state officials could not confirm the allegations as security men denied people entry into the secretariat.