From John Adams, Minna

The All Progressive Congress (APC) local government congress in Niger State has been marred by intrigue and open manipulation with aspirants vehemently rejecting the consensus arrangements abducted by the party in the state.

This resulted in stalemates in the congress in about ten local government areas of the state with some aspirants threatening court action over the party decision to abduct consensus arrangements rather than allow an election.

Our correspondent gathered that the consensus arrangement is being challenged in Paikoro, Bida, Chanchaga, Lapai and six other local government areas by aggrieved party members.

In Paikoro local government, for instance, two out of the three chairmanship candidates disagreed with the consensus arrangements, insisting that there must election as they were not aware of any consensus agreement.

They accused a top politician in the area of hijacking the entire process with the intention of imposing his preferred candidate as the local government party chairman.

One of the aggrieved Chairmanship candidates, Mallam Nakoji Busai Paigo told our correspondent that he and his other contestants decided to opt-out of any consensus arrangements because “there was no any discussion or agreement among us for consensus arrangements before.

‘We have therefore resolved that there must be an election for the people’s candidate to emerge. That is the only way that justice and fairness can be said to have been done,’ he said.

Mallam Nakoji threatened that if anything short of an election to elect party officials that will run the affairs of the party, will be challenged in court, adding that ‘from all indication, the party is heading for self-destruction.’

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Also in Chanchaga local government, the consensus arrangements were vehemently resisted by the people who insisted that there must be an election if the party wants peace to reign in the local government.

After hours of stalemate, the party caved in and resolved to go into an election for various executive positions that run the affairs of the party at the local government level.

As of the time of filing this report, voting was still ongoing at the Abdulsalami Abubakar youth centre in Minna, the state capital which is the venue for the congress.

But the Niger State Chairman All Progressives Congress (APC) Congress Committee, Senator Domingo Obende however confirmed that only five local governments could not agree on consensus and will go ahead with the election on Sunday by 10 am.

Domingo who disclosed this in a press briefing on Saturday evening in Minna said that there was no imposition of a candidate anywhere in the state.

The congress committee chairman who gave the names of the local government where the people could not agree on consensus arrangements to include Wushishi, Rijau, Shiroro, Bida and Lapai explained that the exercise where there were consensus arrangements were relatively peaceful.

He assured free, fair and transparent congresses in the state devoid of any rancour, nothing further than a three-man panel set up by the party had been given a template on how to conduct the election.

He urged the affected local governments to remain calm, conduct themselves peacefully devoid of violence or chaos and assured them of transparent conduct of the election.