Zamfara State chapter of the All Progressives Congress (APC) has in strong terms warned the ruling People’s Democratic Party (PDP to avoid dragging security personnel, especially deployed to provide protection, into politics and election matters.

The Zamfara APC, in a press conference held at the party headquarters in Gusau, the state capital, on Monday, by the State Publicity Secretary, Yusuf Idris Gusau, said the claim by the PDP is baseless and fabricated to cover weakness for winning the election.

“In their deceitful text read during their Sunday press conference, they alleged that the military deployment was to intimidate voters, which is baseless and fabricated lies just to smear the good image of our Security personnel who were stationed at polling units to prevent all kinds of election malpractice such as ballot snatching and destruction of election materials through violence especially as planned by the PDP which is notoriously known for in Zamfara elections.

“And the claim that the army was inside polling centres lacks proof and is a deliberate distortion of reality. We have formidable evidence, both in pictures and video forms, that the PDP had embarked on irregularities to disrupt the election process.

“Despite the security announcement on the ban on CPG and CJTF on election duty, the government ignored and deployed them in large numbers and stationed them in all six wards armed with sophisticated weapons just to rig the election in their favour, but our gallant security agencies prevented them, making the ridiculous PDP seek public sympathy now.

“We are still urging the police to investigate the source of firearms given to the thugs ahead of last Saturday’s election in the state.

*Even members of the CPG who sacrifice their lives daily in the protection of lives and properties of the common man in the state are not taken care of by the government that has consistently refused to take care of the families of those who died in the line of duty, instead, the government is now sending them on election field to kill innocent souls in order to manipulate votes.

“When PDP and its destructive agents noticed that the election outcome from some polling units was not in their favour, they started executing their earlier evil machinations to destroy the election that was going peacefully in many polling units, and the security on election duty resisted.

“Most of you were with us when PDP thugs were led by two local government chairmen at Polling Units 013 and Polling Unit 002 at Kasuwar Daji, where they destroyed the election materials, breaking the ballot box, tearing all the ballot papers and carting away the VBas machine. We have the video clips and still pictures at our disposal.

“Likewise, the PDP Chairman led some thugs at Sakajiki ward in order to disrupt the election, but the security agents at the collation centre denied him access and later turned him back. This video has also gone viral on social media.

“The same PDP Chairman led thugs to disrupt elections in the Tukasu Polling unit, where INEC officials were beaten and all the election material was destroyed.

“The PDP quickly swapped their destructive agents by using the CSO of the government house and the ADC to the Governor to lead teams in destroying election materials and chasing away innocent electorate.

“The video clips of these claims are there to buttress what we are saying as against the flimsy excuse shamefully presented by their state Chairman”, Idris Gusau has stressed.