By Musa Baba Adamu with agency report
The African Democratic Congress (ADC) has intensified pressure on the Adamawa State Independent Electoral Commission (ADSIEC) by challenging the legitimacy of the June 13 local government elections and demanding a fresh exercise across the state.
The party’s chairmanship and councillorship candidates, who contested in the election, argued that the process failed to meet basic democratic standards and should not be recognized as a valid electoral exercise.
Speaking in Yola on behalf of the candidates, Abubakar Ahmadu alleged that voting did not take place in many parts of the state, raising questions about how results were compiled and winners declared.
The election produced Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) candidates as winners of all 21 local government chairmanship seats and the 226 councillorship positions across Adamawa State.
However, the ADC candidates maintained that the announced outcomes did not reflect the wishes of voters and described the process as fundamentally flawed. According to them, the exercise lacked transparency, credibility and inclusiveness.
Ahmadu accused electoral authorities of undermining democratic principles, arguing that the poll represented a serious setback for grassroots democracy in the state.
The aggrieved candidates have now appealed to civil society organisations, democracy advocates and constitutional rights groups to intervene and push for accountability.
Insisting that they do not recognise the elected chairmen and councillors announced by ADSIEC, the ADC candidates called on the electoral commission to cancel the exercise and organise a new election that would guarantee broad participation and public confidence.
The controversy adds to growing scrutiny of local government elections in parts of the country, where opposition parties have frequently raised concerns about transparency and fairness in state-managed electoral processes.
