By TINA AKANNAM, Dutse
The Chairman of Jigawa State Independent Electoral Commission (JISIEC), Alhaji Muhammadu Sani Ahmed (Dan Amar of Gumel) has disclosed that contestants from 26 political parties in the state purchased the nomination forms for various positions in the forthcoming local government elections scheduled to hold in January except the ANPP and ACN.

The commission chairman, explained that only the ruling PDP members purchased forms for all 27 local government councils in the state, stressing that both ANPP/ ACN leaders did not disclose reasons for their plan boycott of the elections.

According to him “ Before the commencement of selling of forms, we held a meeting with officials of the all political parties registered in the state and some of them even begged the commission to extend the deadline which we did from 10 -13 days and yet the ANPP/ACN did not purchase any of the forms”.

Reacting to the speculations that the commission with dance to the tune of the states ruling party, he said dismissed the speculation declaring that the were appointed under oat and will not betray the trust bestowed on them even though the commission if being funded by the state government.

His words “ I want to assure all thoe who purchase our forms that the state government has never interfered with our activities since I was appointed as chairman of the commission, he governor deliberately distanced himself from the activities of the commission”.

Alhaji Sani Ahmed then disclosed that then commission has already placed advertisement on national newspapers inviting NGOs and CBOs from within and outside the country to come and monitor the election, ‘ we stated that only accredited NGOs and CBOs will be recognized and allowed to monitor the election on the election day,’ he warned.