The gubernatorial
candidate of the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC), Mohammed Buba
Marwa, over the weekend, obtained his voter’s card at his Michika
hometown in Adamawa State where he called on Nigerians to support the
Independent National Electoral Commission.
The Nigerian envoy
to South Africa, with his voter’s card in his hands, told citizens of
the state of voting age to take advantage of the “exercise to bring
change.”
“This is the only prerequisite to voting,” he noted.
Mr. Marwa was
informed by officials of INEC that over 68,000 voters have so far been
registered in the Michika Local Government. The aspirant expressed
satisfaction over the handling of the registration exercise and urged
the National Assembly and Nigerians to give the electoral body all the
necessary support that would ensure that every Nigerian of voting age
was registered.
He urged the
government to release the N6.6 billion being demanded by INEC boss,
Attahiru Jega, to cover the cost for extending the voter registration
exercise by another week.
“Mr Jega has demonstrated that he knows what he is doing and therefore should be supported,” Mr. Marwa said.
Mr. Marwa who was
registered by a National Youth Service Corps member at his ward
expressed his pleasure with the extension and commended INEC for
effectively dealing with the inadequacies that had greeted the voter
registration at the beginning.
“I have no interest
in apportioning blame to any one,” he said. “I’m happy to note that
there were issues in the beginning and they have been addressed.”
Seizing the
opportunity for a brief campaign, the gubernatorial aspirant promised
to abolish school fees, SSCE fees and run free education in the state.
He claimed that he was aware of the teeming population of youths in the
state who were unable to go to school because their parents and
guardians could not pay their school fees. He accused the incumbent
administration of the People’s Democratic Party in the state of showing
little regard for the problem.
“I am aware that
the incumbent had asked parents struggling to pay SSCE fees for their
children to go and cut firewood and sell or do something else in order
to pay,” he said. “Definitely, we cannot be part of this because our
government will pay SSCE fees for our students.”
“This is not a new
thing to me because I have done it 20 years ago. I was the first
governor in the North to abolish SSCE fees and we have done all that,”
he said, talking about his tenure as governor of Borno state, two
decades ago.
“We are also going
to build schools and look after teachers’ welfare and offer free
education. In that way, we will revamp the educational sector and bring
Adamawa State to where it belongs,” he said.
The incumbent government had last year reinstated the payment of
SSCE fees by students, arguing that the state could not continue to
offer funds to a programme which it claimed was mired with
“unimpressive performance”.
