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The Military have allegedly killed four voters in Bayan Dutse Polling Unit, Ginga Ward, Suru Local Government of Kebbi State.
The Police Public Relations Officer, Nafiu Abubakar, confirmed the incident to journalists.
“Yes, we have received report of the killings of four people allegedly killed by Soldiers and I will give you details of the killings as soon we conclude our investigation,” he said.
The House of Representative-elect representing Suru/Bagudo federal constituency, Abdullahi Suru, also confirmed this to journalists.
He said the incident happened around noon on Saturday as accreditation was going on in the area which predominant has supporters of the All Progressives Congress.
“A serving Area Development Counsellor, Ahmed Sankezu, invited the soldiers to arrest some prominent elders in the area because he was earlier prevented from accessing the PU to perfect their rigging plan.
“The soldiers opened fire on the voters who challenged them from ‘arresting’ the elders,” he alleged.
The Governorship candidate of the APC in Kebbi State, Atiku Bagudu, urged the voters in Kebbi to guard their votes.
Mr. Bagudu said he hopes to win the elections.
“Everyone is hopeful,” he said.
While calling for a violence free election, Mr. Bagudu said “We have stressed numerous times during the campaign that we don’t want anyone to get hurt for politicking.
“We want everyone to be obedient, cooperate with the security agencies, the Independent National Electoral Commission and more importantly to guard their rights. They should do what the law says.
“They should ensure that there is no thuggery and nobody takes away the mandate that they want to confer on whosoever they so desire.”
Mr. Bangudu lamented the high rate of card reader failure but commended the significant improvement in the turnaround time per voter.
“We noticed that the turnaround time has improved significantly even though the failure rate of the card readers is still significant so the number of entries in the incident form is quite high.
“But we are pleased that the amount of time it is taking is lessened significantly and we hope that this will be less tedious and most people will be able to vote and the process will finish earlier than it did last time,” said Mr. Bagudu.
Also, the Peoples Democratic Party flag-bearer in the state, Sarkin Yaki Bello warned against do-or-die politics in the state.
Mr. Bello commended INEC for the noticeable improvements in the voting process.
He said: “Remember last time my finger print could not be identified but today I am very impressed.
“The efforts of INEC are really commendable. I am sure that have learnt from the mistakes they may have made last two weeks.
“To me every process is a learning process. As you love forward you learn from what you have done and also improve upon them. So I believe INEC has learnt lessons and they have tremendously improved in terms of performance.”
He expressed worry over voter apathy saying: “I can see there appears to be an apathy of voters’ turnout.
“I urge the people to please come out enmasse and vote and I also enjoin them to be patriotic and vote the best candidate out of all of us who are vying for the position.”
“I don’t election to be a do-or-die politics. I mean, every military officer knows leadership is part and parcel of our training. Right from your first day in the Nigerian Defence Academy, you start learning about leadership.
“So leadership has many attributes. As a retired General it should not be a do or die affair. It should be the dividend, and delivery kind of machinery that must be able to inspire confidence in its followership, live in the fear of God and at least achieve results,” said Mr. Bello.
On his part, the Minister of Special Duties, Kabiru Turaki, said the outcome of the governorship election in Kebbi State would be a win-win situation for the people of Birnin-Kebbi since the candidates of the APC and PDP are both from Birnin-Kebbi.
Mr. Turaki, who is the Director General of the PDP Presidential Campaign Council, said the turnout was encouraging.
“You can see all over here people have turned out enmasse because the governorship election is even more critical than the Presidential and National Assembly elections because these are people that work here locally with the people.
“These are people make such interventions as far as the needs and requirements of the people. Invariably therefore, everybody will not want to be left out as far as selecting this tier of leaders is concerned,” said Mr. Turaki.
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