27th February, 2019
The Plateau chapter of the PDP has acused the state’s Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC), Alhaji Halilu Pai, of “compromising his position and manipulating the electoral process”.
Chief Damishi Sango, the chairman of the party, while addressing a press conference on Wednesday in Jos, particularly alleged that Pai was “biased” and had “glaringly tsken sides”.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), reports that the accusation followed INEC’s delay in declaring some results of the National Assembly elections in the state, five days after the conduct of the polls.
According to Sango, the inability of INEC to declare some of the results has “thrown Plateau into serious confusion”.
He also alleged that some of the results declared so far were “done under duress with heavy security presence”.
“It is glaring to everyone that Mallam Halilu Pai, the REC in this state, has compromised his position as an impartial umpire.
“His inability to annouce and declare winners of some of the National Assembly results has caused a lot of anxiety; if you know Plateau well, this is a recipe for monumental crisis.
“So, we are alerting the nation and the whole world to hold the REC esponsible for any breakdown of law and order,” he said
Sango appealed to the REC to thread the part of justice and fairness, and declare the actual winners of the polls without further delay.
NAN reports that the party leaders, led by Lt. Gen. Jeremiah Useni (rtd), the PDP governorship candidate, later staged a peaceful protest to the INE
C office in the state, demanding the immediate declaration of winners of the polls.
Contacted, Pai said that the allegations were “not true”.
“I am on my way to Abuja for a meeting and I will call you later, but what I can say is that the allegations are not true,” he told NAN in a telephone interview.