Area Council Poll: NSCDC disowns officer accused of result manipulation

The FCT Command of the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps, NSCDC, has distanced itself from the purported manipulation of election results in the February 12, 2022 chairmanship election for Abuja Municipal Area Council, AMAC.
The rebuttal followed allegations against a civil defence officer, Samuel Balogun, who was part of the security personnel alleged to be involved in the supposed production of a controversial electoral result, different from that of INEC, which the tribunal relied upon for its judgment.
Recall that the FCT Election Tribunal recently entered judgement against the incumbent AMAC chairman of the PDP, Christopher Zakka, in favour of the APC candidate, Murtala Karshhi.
However, the commandant of the NSCDC in Abuja, Peter Maigari, dissociated the corps from involvement in the alleged interference with the electoral outcome, insisting that the NSCDC remains non-partisan in election processes.
Maigari, noted as far as election security is concerned, the police are the lead agency.
The FCT-NSCDC boss, who spoke Wednesday, during a courtesy call on the AMAC chairman, said the corps was not privy to any of such extent of involvement in the electoral process and tribunal procedure.
His words: “To be candid with you, if not two days ago, I as the Commandant of the NSCDC, FCT Command, I never heard any of these things. Thank God you were able to fish out the officer, I may not have known if there was any communication between them and the beadquarters but the headquarters did not communicate to me. But whatsoever the misgivings, chairman, let me allay your fears very clear.
“As far as election issues are concerned, I cannot prosecute electoral issues except the police. The civil defender who spoke there, is on his own, and I’m sure the Commandant General is not aware of this, so as I will address the issue with Commandant General. It is not in our character to malign, what we do is the correct thing we have said”.
The commander, who said he was at the council secretariat to seek areas of synergy, said,
“AMAC is the seat of power in Nigeria, as such everything that should happen to Nigeria, the best should be here. That alone should encourage and spur people to do the right thing. So, I’m calling on you to please, as I will reel out my request based on various submissions, and those you can assist us to do, please assist us to do them.
“I will continue to ask for more, I’m equally asking the council members to support the chairman to continue to assist all the security agencies in the FCT. Security is not just an individual affair, it is everyone.”
Responding, AMAC The chairman said it was regrettable that some persons are bent on upturning the electoral mandate of AMAC people who overwhelmingly voted for the PDP candidate and returned winner of the February 12th election by INEC.
Zakka, however, assured the NSCDC in FCT that the Council will synergize to make sure that AMAC is safe.
According to him, “I’m glad that my spokesman has already aired it out and I believe you will use your wisdom to get this Samuel Balogun and push out the bad eggs in your establishment. I will be glad if you do that so that Nigeria will move forward.
“The person that did it, did it for his selfish interest because at the end of the election, we were all handed copies of the election result. Everyone, from the politician, to political party and security agencies, all had copies but surprisingly while taking it (election results) to the tribunal, something happened along the way. What we are having is not what was presented and that need to be address properly otherwise our 2023 is as at stake”.