Plateau North Senatorial, Reps Rerun: PDP not on the Ballot, IPAC to boycott Saturday Election

From Tongnaan Bawa, Jos

The Peoples Democratic Party PDP name and Logo
has been Said to be excluded from the ballots ahead of the Saturday 3rd February Re – run Elections for Plateau North Senatorial District and Jos North/Bassa Federal Constituency.

There is anxiety in Plateau State over the exclusion of the names of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and its candidates from among other contestants for the rerun slated for 3rd Saturday 2024.

It would be recalled that the Court of Appeal, Abuja Division, has sacked the Former Senate Minority Sen.Simon Mwadkwon and the lawmaker representing Plateau North under the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and also Hon. Musa Agah Member Representing Jos North/ Bassa Federal Constituency and order rerun with all parties.

However, the PDP officials who had arrived Central Bank of Nigeria Jos Branch on Thursday morning for the inspection of the Sensitive Election by INEC, Security agencies and Party officials for the rerun on Saturday discovered that the PDP wasn’t on the ballot Paper.

Our correspondent reliably gathered that only eleven Political parties were printed on the Ballot papers to participate including AA, ADC, ADP, APC, LP, SDP and ZLP amongst others

INEC National Commissioner in charge of Plateau, Nasarawa, FCT and Kaduna State Mohammed Kudu Hassan while addressing Journalists at the Central Bank Jos office venue of the distribution of the electoral materials said the INEC Headquarters has made it clear that in the rerun, the disqualified party and it’s candidate cannot participate in the that election.

“The Chairman of INEC made it very clear that in a rerun, the disqualified party, the candidate and the party cannot participate in that election. This is an established law. The Supreme Court had ruled about this in Labour vs INEC several years ago and PDP in particular was the beneficiary of this several years ago in many cases like this. So this was made clear. INEC is a law-abiding institution. As soon as these things happened, that’s why we called, as I told you, we called a meeting of political parties. They will all testify, the chairman and all the parties were there and that meeting in our head office and we made this very clear. So if the courts, the PDP went to the court in Abuja and the Federal court declined jurisdiction. So what that means is that the ruling by the Court of Appeal subsists and we have to obey the court.

“Our hands are tied. It’s whatever the court says. Whether it is right or wrong, that is what we want. Unless it is set aside and it has not been set aside. the Supreme Court had ruled as I said on this matter a long time ago in the case of Labour versus INEC when the same thing happened and we proceeded to conduct the elections without Labour and their their candidate. So this is the situation that is why you see the Ballot paper does not have the People’s Democratic Party PDP on it.

“The chairman was very emphatic about this and they, some of the PDP people went to see the party chairman After that meeting with the IPAC they went they sought an audience with the chairman. He gave them an audience explained to them and they gave him the impression that they were absolutely satisfied with the explanation he gave them.

Meanwhile, the Chairman of the Inter-Party Advisory Council Abubakar Dogara denied being informed of the exclusion of the PDP by the INEC and said their position in IPAC is that it’s either all parties participate in the elections or all parties will not participate in the elections because, at the appeal court, the court said all parties to participate in the run elections.

“We understand that one of us is not on the ballot paper. We therefore sat down as Inter-party Advisory Council all the political party chairmen on the plateau We agreed that an injury to one is an injury to all. Therefore, if the PDP is not participating, no political party is going to participate in the forthcoming elections on Saturday 3rd February 2024.

“We were not adequately informed that one of us will not be part of the elections. We’re told that a list of the parties that will participate in the elections will be forwarded to us within a week. Since 9th January and today 1st of February, No information was sent to us until this morning when parties realized that one of us is not going to be on the ballot paper.

“We prefer peace on the plateau, You know how fragile the issue of peace is on the plateau. You know what has been happening recently. We are trying to avert anything that will take us to the doom of the past. That is why we are taking this decision”.