Niger State governor Babangida Aliyu on Saturday maintained that democracy must be taken to Local Government levels to achieve credible result in the forth coming elections.
Aliyu made this known after casting his vote on Peoples Democratic Party(PDP) State Assembly Primaries (Chanchaga constituency),at UK Bello Art Theatre, minna, adding” we will get it wrong if we don’t go to grass root.”
According to him,” My opinion is that democracy starts at the Local government levels, if we get it right at the ward and Local government levels believe me the State and Federal levels will be normal. But where you do not take it where people are, there must be problem.”
He said, “In Niger State , we respect our local arrangement of zoing and if we zone a particular office we may not stop others as a result of democracy,we may not stop but them from contesting but we hope that our delegates will vote in accordance with the local arrangement that has been in place.”
On whether the shift of registration of voters card by Independent Electoral Commission(INEC) will bring negative effect on voters,Aliyu said, ” I don’t think so ,INEC Chairman sent a special delegation to explain to me why the shift it. I think is better for the shift than to have a kind of problem which we noticed in other States,but they told me logistics reasons why our own needed to be shifted.”
“I believe if voters card will get to Nigerians we will still be ready for the february elections, I don’t see any negative impact , is better to delay it and have it perfectly done rather than having many people disenfranchised.”
The Governor however assured the PDP members that all the security agencies are in place in all the venues, where it may be difficult for any reason to have an election or to have delegates to participate actively,adding that their lives must be secured.
Announcing the result of Chanchaga constituency of PDP House of Assemly primaries, Chairman electoral Committee Aminu Gwargwaje said that 66 was the total number of vote cast; jumai jafaru got 27 votes, jamilu Saidu got 19, Muazu Madaki got 5 votes,Saria Kesiu got 5 votes and Fati Abubakar got 7 votes. Three invalid
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