By Peter Duru, Makurdi

The 2019 Presidential and National Assembly elections may have come and gone but after a close look at the outcome of the exercise in Benue state, one cannot but conclude that it came with significant surprise that could define and chart the way for future political contests in the state.

PDP, INEC disagree over supplementary election in Ondo South

At the end of the polls, the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, swept the three available senatorial seats and six of the 11 House of Representatives positions. The All Progressives Congress, APC, took one, the All Progressives Grand Alliance, APGA, took two while two others where declared inconclusive.

President Muhammadu Buhari and Atiku Abubakar

Curiously, the spread and volume of the votes garnered by the presidential candidates of the two dominant parties, the PDP and the APC have left tongues wagging.

Pundits had expected that the PDP candidate, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar would record a clean sweep of the polls, following the persistent outcry and resentment expressed by the people of the state, before the elections, over the manner the Buhari led federal government handled the killings in the state.

The impression across the country and beyond was that the election would provide the people a veritable platform to pay back the APC led federal government in their own coin by massively voting for Atiku Abubakar.

Strangely, that was not to be and at the end of collation of ballots and the final declaration by the state collation officer, Prof. Sebastian Maimako, the PDP candidate emerged victorious with a total of 355,255 votes to defeat President Muhammadu Buhari who garnered 347,668 votes. That victory recorded a narrow margin of 7,587 votes.

While the PDP candidate won in 12 LGAs of the state, President Buhari secured 11 LGAs with many of that votes coming from the Tiv speaking areas of the state who, apart from Agatu, bore the brunt of marauding herdsmen at the heat of the attacks on Benue communities.

When Saturday Vanguard sought the opinion of a bigwig of the APC and Returning Agent of the party, Mr. Joe Abaagu on the secret of the performance of his party in the presidential election, he said President Buhari’s poverty alleviation programme did the magic.

According to him, “the N-Power and school feeding programmes and other support interventions of the Buhari led administration did the wonder for us. Those programmes were successful in this state and the people actually benefited from them which invariably went a long way to influence their choice.”

On his part, PDP stalwart and Returning Agent for the party, Mr. Alex Adum blamed votes falsification and buying for the high number of votes returned by the APC in the presidential election.

Adum said, “the high number of votes in the presidential election, came from four principal local governments where the party garnered huge votes, and theses are Konshisha, Vandeikya, Kwande and Makurdi.

“In those four local governments it was a combination of vote buying, falsification of figures and outright rigging of the elections. In Konshisha it was outright thumb printing that occurred there, in Makurdi it was falsification of the figures after collation and in Vandeikya it was outright thumb printing and same in Kwande.

“In Makurdi for instance, the difference between accredited voters and actual ballot cast was over 10,600 or there about. But because my collation agents at the local governments were not vigilant, they allowed the results to pass.

“Total voters who were accredited were about 64,000, now the tally came to the collation centre the total tally rose from about 64,000 to about 75,000 and the collation officer could not explain how he came about that difference.

“In Konshisha we had records of about 19,000 votes that were thumb printed and the Returning Officer couldn’t reconcile them but allowed it to go, same for Vandeikya. So, it is not as if those votes APC garnered in Benue were cast for the party, they were a combination of votes cast for the party, rigged votes and votes that were bought. And the buying machine of APC included direct buying on the queue on the day of voting and the fact that they were using the Trader Moni to induce some certain level of people and N-Power to push it. So a combination of these factors essentially pushed the APC votes”.

Reacting, Convener of the Middle Belt Movement for Justice and Peace, MBMJP, Comrade Joe Bukka said the entire world especially those who sympathized with Benue over the herdsmen killings in the state were in shock and disbelief over the number of votes recorded by APC presidential candidate in the state.

Bukka said, “the conclusion of most of us who have been following the ordeal of the people was that those figures were manufactured but the next election will give us a clearer picture of the mindset of the people of the state”.