Gombe APC warns PDP not to use thugs to rig elections

From David Hassan, Gombe

The All Progressive Congress (APC) in Gombe has warned the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to put its house in order and ensure that political thugs are not used for violence in 2015 general elections even as the party has urged the PDP to prepare to pack its belongings from the Government House, stressing that there will be no hiding place for the ruling party.

All Progressive Congress (APC) Zonal Vice Chairman, Gombe South, Julius Ishaya said this in reaction to recent activities of restive youths in the state.

He said: “For people to be clashing and killing themselves in the name of politics is not a good development. APC is against it and we will never encourage our youths to engage in any form of restiveness or thuggery.

“And because of the way we love the development and citizens of Gombe state, we will not want an individual to lose his life or get injured because of politics because the centre of our activities is the people.”

He acknowledged that youth restiveness popularly called Kalare in Gombe state is not peculiar to the state, but that there are measures government could take that will go a long way to reducing it to the barest minimum.

He said the state government is unfortunately paying lip service to ending the scourge without doing “anything to actually create job and engage the young minds.”

Ishaya called for calm from the people of the state assuring them that APC would soon unseat the ruling party and will put all necessary machineries in place to change the situation.

“When APC comes, the youth will be a priority to our government. We have the ideas, we have the initiative and we have the political will to create jobs, to engage the youths.

“And naturally, people will come to renounce Kalare. But as for this government, we have not seen any effort,” he said.

It should be recalled that PDP youths loyal to different members of the party recently clashed in Kumo and left six brutally injured.

About one week later, two paramilitary men who were products of Gombe State Corps Marshals were allegedly killed in the state capital, though the police said the murder involved one and that six arrests were made in connection with the crime.

The police however said “the rivalry witnessed among the hooligans who were hitherto branded as Kalare, now gainfully employed by the state government as Marshal are seemingly engaged in acts of hooliganism between themselves on minor issues.”