Dr Mato Dogara, former Deputy Speaker of Kaduna State House of Assembly and member of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has cast doubt over the chances of his party in tomorrow’s (Saturday) local government elections in Kaduna State.
On Saturday, September 4, the Kaduna State Independent Electoral Commission (SIECOM) will organise local government elections in all the 23 local government areas of Kaduna state.
But ahead of the election, the PDP has been predicted to have a poor outing after in-house politics had broken the party into two factions and caused failure in past elections.
In the August 14 bye-election in Lere constituency, the Federal High Court in Kaduna State restrained the party from submitting the list of the party’s candidates to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).
Speaking in an exclusive interview with NewsWireNGR on Friday, Dogara also predicted a woeful performance for PDP candidates in the election because the party is a house divided against itself.
Speaking to NewsWireNGR, he said; “As far as this election is concerned, just about two or three weeks ago, we had the bye-election into the House of Representatives and PDP were defeated woefully.
“Now we are going into local government elections tomorrow. For me, the way I see things, it may not necessarily be different from what happened some weeks ago.
“Not because of anything, but because of the total and unfortunate disagreement among the PDP members.”
Dogara further explained that the party’s chances of winning in the local government elections are slim because of its insincerity and decision to disregard candidates produced by the conventional provisions of its party.
According to him, the ward congresses and National Working Committee of the party had announced the candidates that passed its customary process of selection.
“But even after publishing the list of candidates on the internet, some disgruntled people in the party disregarded due process and passed the back door to change the results of the party.
“This development divided the party in the state into two factions, therefore harming the party’s strength and unity heading into the polls”.
He said, “congresses were held on 14th March 2020. Those people that were duly elected at the congresses were given approval without any complaint.
“The congress committee from the National did their assignment, the appeal committee came and did their assignment, the NWC reviewed the report of the ward congress committee and the appeal committee. None of the reports showed the kind of problems that were seen.
“The National Working Committee of the PDP approved the list of the ward congresses. The list was then sent to the internet, and it went viral.”
“When the result came out, some people felt they were not happy with these results. But these results were gotten by consensus in some wards while in other wards, they did real congress elections”.
He further added that the list of candidates may indeed be changed, but they must be agreed upon by the same processes that presented the initial candidates.
“In law and the constitution of the PDP, no one, not even the national chairman has the right to change the name of anyone elected at the ward congress because that is the supreme.
“It is only when another ward congress is held that the results can be changed. But these people who felt they were not satisfied with the results went and collided with people somewhere, then another letter came containing a fresh list on the 10th of June 2020.”
“Where they got their list and how they were able to get it to the National is something that remains an unfortunate situation,” he further said.
“And all that we are saying is that no single individual can change the result of the congress list.
“So the two factions are those who believe in the results of the congress and those who believe the results at the congress should be changed.”
