Violence mars Bauchi ANPP LG primaries - Commissioner, 14 others missing, 2 dead, 45 arrested

Ishola Michael, Bauchi - 15.04.2008

FOLLOWING the violence that marred last weekend’s primaries conducted by the All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP) in Bauchi State to elect chairmanship and councillorship candidates for the forthcoming local government council elections, the state Commissioner for Lands and Survey, Mallam Aminu Hammayo, has been declared missing along side 14 members of his team sent to Kirfi Local Government Area for the exercise.

Two people have also been confirmed dead, while 45 people, believed to be political thugs have been arrested by the security operatives in the state.

The news of the missing commissioner alongside his members was broken by the chairman of the party primaries, Mallam Abdulmuyi Mukhtar, at a press briefing held at the deputy governor’s office on Monday, while the death of the two people as well as the arrests were disclosed by the Commissioner of Police, Mr. Adanaya Talman-Gaya, at a separate press briefing on Monday.

According to Mukhtar, the missing commissioner and his team left Bauchon Saturday for Kirfi Local Government Area to monitor the conduct of the exercise and had since not returned, while their whereabouts were yet to be known as at the time of the briefing.

The chairman added that that all efforts made by his party to contact the missing commissioner or anyone from his team had not been successful, assuring that search would be intensified to locate them, hoping that they were still alive.