Borno LG Polls: APC sweeps all seats

The All Progressives Congress, APC) has won all the chairmanship seats across the 27 local government areas of Borno State in the council elections held on Saturday.

The party also won all the councillorship seats in the 312 wards of the state.

Announcing the results in Maiduguri on Sunday, the Executive Chairman of Borno State Independent Electoral Commission (BOSIEC), Hon Lawan Maina, said the election was free, fair and conducted peacefully.

He said, “Today we have received results from all the 27 local government areas, and as empowered by law, under section 10 (a,b,c and d), in my position as the chief returning officer of the state, I read out the results.

“The ruling party APC has won all the 27 local government councils in the state, equally, the ruling party has won 312 council members in all the wards in the state, with this, we have concluded and come to the end of the exercise.

“The certificate presentation would be made at a later date, which would be announced very soon”.

Earlier, after the Borno State Governor, Prof Babagana Umara Zulum, cast his vote in his country home, Mafa, he promised to improve the Council electoral process in the state.

Zulum said he would improve the election processes to give the electorate freedom to vote for honest and qualitative leaders that would transform lives of people at the grassroots.

The election, which the ruling APC swept was contested between six political parties, comprising the All Progressives Congress (APC), Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), New Nigeria People’s Party (NNPP), Social Democratic Party (SDP), Labour Party (LP) and Allied People’s Movement (APM).

However, earlier before the election, the opposition PDP had berated the BOSEIC, saying it lacked the capacity to conduct free, fair and credible elections.

Zanna said their position as a party was to boycott the exercise but some party members insisted to “gamble” in four local government areas.

“From our previous experience and now, we know the electoral commission has no capacity to conduct a free, fair and credible elections, so we feel that it’s a waste of time and resources for us to participate or partake in an exercise in futility.

“But, some of our members felt otherwise, and they wanted to gamble their money, so we allowed them to gamble. That is why, only four Chairmen are contesting under the PDP,  for Maiduguri, Jere, Askira and Biu” he said

An allegation that the Executive Chairman of the electoral body (BOSEIC) dispelled and assured free, fair and credible exercise.