Niger State primaries: Governor vs legislators
Like in some other states, ripples trailing the recently conducted primaries in Niger State especially with respect to legislative seats at both state and national levels have failed to abate mainly due to factors that may not conduce to the best of public interest. The primary elections aimed at producing candidates for various elective offices in the forthcoming 2019 polls suffered a stampede of sorts, by virtually all the political parties due to their late rallies to meet the October 7 deadline fixed by the INEC. The case of Niger State may have assumed a dimension with many colourations depending on which side an observer stands.
The bone of contention in Niger State borders on which of two primary elections to produce candidates for legislative offices - particular the three Senatorial seats for the State, stands as authentic. Is it the one of October 2nd 2018 or that which held three days later on October 5th that should carry the day? Both produced different sets of candidates - a situation that has raised uneasiness between the State Governor, the National Chairman of APC Adams Oshiomole and the two sets of candidates so produced. In one vein the trio of Mohamed Sani Musa, Mohamed Binu and Zakari Haliru Jikantoro, are claiming to have won the primaries of October 2nd 2018, and therefore remain the authentic candidates of the party for their respective Senatorial constituencies. However, their expectations for their purported nomination to be endorsed by the National Headquarters of the party fell flat as the later ordered fresh primaries for October 5th at which the incumbent Senators/David Umaru, Mustapha Sani and Sabi Abdullahi were returned as duly nominated. The issue at stake now is the insistence of the earlier trio to be endorsed as they claim to be the authentic nominees of the party.
The matter seems to feature other aspects that point to a more underhand playout of interest which not a few observers see as foreshadowing a tacit move to remove the entire or much of the present crop of legislators at the National Assembly comprising the serving Senators and House of Representatives members as well as the members of the Niger State House of Assembly. Specifically the observers are pointing to the spirited moves by the Governor of the State to upstage the fortunes of some members of the legislative class in the state.
A case in point was the experience of Honourable Abdullahi Lado Member of the House of Representatives representing Suleja, was arrested and detained by the Police ostensibly on the orders of the Niger State Governor over an incident of fighting between two political groups in Suleja. The House of Representatives literally had to brow-beat the Police to secure his release by threatening to close shop if their member was not released immediately. Lado had since gained his freedom. However, the unveiled implication of the governor in Lado’s plight has not absolved him of tendentiousness in the politics of APC primaries in the state.