By John Mkom, Jalingo.

The Taraba State Secretary to the State Government Barrister Gibon Timothy Kataps has said that the burning and looting of his country home at Gyembu the headquarters of Sadauna local government area by tugs was a sacrifice to democracy.

The SSG stated this while speaking on his ordeal on the post election violence in Gyembu to Vanguard at his house in Jalingo.

He said the burning of his house and those of former Nigerian Ambassador to Cameroon Amb. Emmanuel Njuwa, and a house member representing Mbamga constituency at the state house of assembly was targeted to rubbish the governorship election result from the local government area.

It would be recalled that there were serious crisis following the out come of last week governorship elections at Gyembu in Sadauna local government area which led to the burning of houses and distraction of properties, and imposition of 24 hours curfew in the area by the state government.

The SSG lament that “Before we left Jalingo to Gyembu on the eve of the governorship election, we got a security information that our opponents had an original result sheet of the governorship election which they wanted to fill and present to INEC as the out come of the governorship election from Sadauna”

“We went to Sadauna and we were very vigilant because while we were in Gyembu we also gathered that they planned to use violent to substitute authentic result with fake one”

“While we were trying our best to call our boys to order so as to prevent any violent, we also discovered that a large number of youths who were taken refuge in Gyembu as a result of insurgent from Bauchi, Gombe and Yola were recruited by those desperate politicians to break up the crisis”

“After election the results started coming into Gyembu for collation and that was when the tension spark off, because I refused to give an inch and I was calling the youths to order at all points when I suspect there may be crisis they decided to say my house should be looted”

“The idea was to distract me from the pooling unit.
“They went and invaded my house, breaking the fence as the gate was strong for them , they looted the properties inside the house before setting it on fire”

“The plan was that if I leave INEC Collation Center with the security to go and control the crisis inside the town the other group should come and attack the returning office and force him to announce a result ”

“My joy today is that God gave me straight to withstand the pressure because if I had allowed the substitution of the authentic result, APC would have been announced the winner of Taraba state governorship election because of what transpired here in Jalingo”

“What happened in Taraba state election was terrible, The result of the state house of assembly at Ngoroje was announced and a winner was declared, the gap between the APC candidate and the PDP candidate was just 3 votes, the cancelation was over 50,000 but the APC candidate was declare the winer”

“At the governorship the state returning officer refused to declare PDP who was ahead of APC for over 50,000 votes the winner of the election after canceling Donga local government area without any justification”

“After we succeeded in protecting the results while coming home I saw many of the youths 80 per cent of them I can call them by their names, I saw them carrying my plates, spurns, garment, TVs, rugs and so many other things, it was funny”

“My joy is I was able to protect democracy, if three of these houses were to be destroyed and I should protect the result of the electorate so be it”