There is tension in Nasarawa State as the Supreme Court prepares to deliver its judgment on the governorship election petition.
The state’s two main political parties, the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) and the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), are locked in a heated exchange over the Court of Appeal’s decision upholding the victory of Governor Abdullahi Sule.
The APC held a press conference on Thursday, alleging a plot by the PDP to orchestrate violent protests and destabilize the state. State chairman, Aliyu Bello, accused the PDP of inciting ethnic and religious divisions through protests aimed at disrupting the peaceful coexistence of Nasarawa residents.
He said, “The poor women recruited to engage in this shameful act have been paid and convinced, that such equally primitive action has the spiritual powers to earn the party victory at the courts.
“So far, the gods or the deities and the spirits the PDP has been invoking have failed them, and will further fail them again at the Supreme Court.
“The PDP supporters are now classifying the people of Nasarawa State as indigenes and non-indigenes. They are seditiously calling on their imagined ‘indigenous people of Nasarawa State’ to unite and kick against the Court of Appeal judgement, which has rightly reversed the judgement of the State Governorship Election Petition Tribunal, by returning to Governor Sule the popular mandate given to him by majority of the electorate after the Saturday, March 18, 2023, elections.
“We have continuously asked PDP the qualities that made someone an indigene without an answer. Since the return of democracy in 1999, the state has been governed by Senator Abdullahi Adamu, from Kokona Local Government Area; late Dr. Aliyu Akwe Doma from Doma Local Government Area, Senator Umaru Tanko Al-makura from Lafia Local Government Area and Engr Abdullahi A Sule from Akwanga Local Government Area.
“This state belongs to all of us. We should, therefore, not be seen to encourage in any form senseless, baseless and provocative statements that have no roots in history.“