Daily Trust

Hurdles before PDP’s bid to capture Adamawa, Borno, Yobe

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dismay, the same PDP stalwarts were said to have connived with the ANPP government to defeat Goni in the election. Shortly after results were announced, many accusing fingers were pointed at a former minister, whom they said failed to provide the much needed leadership at a critical time during the election.

Initially, rumors had it that the PDP was in clandestin­e agreement with former governor Senator Ali Sherif who is said to be inching closer to defecting to the PDP. His recent reconcilia­tion with Governor Kashim Shettima where the two resolved to work together for the good of the APC has however punctured that claim.

Now that Minister Wakil is said to be heading the team, it is left to be seen if he can rally round party men and women towards the goal of unseating Governor Shettima even after 80 percent of the party’s executives defected to the APC last year.

Yobe

Just like its big sister, Borno, Yobe is also one state that has continued to elude the PDP since 1999.

In 1998, the PDP won about 12 of the 17 local government chairmansh­ip and more than half of the State House of Assembly seats. However, by the time governorsh­ip election was held in 1999, the party lost to the APP’s Bukar Abba Ibrahim and since then it has continued to lose in every election.

The PDP in Yobe has never been weakened like now with many of its founding members defecting to the APC.

Top contenders for the job include ousted minister of state for finance Dr. Yerima Ngama under whose leadership most Yobe PDP stalwarts defected to the APC in protest over his alleged highhanded­ness and undemocrat­ic tendencies.

Ngama is angling to get the PDP ticket in 2015. Same with retired top bureaucrat Alhaji Ibrahim Talba and many others who are yet to declare their ambitions.

Meanwhile, the PDP’s long term governorsh­ip candidate in Yobe, Alhaji Adamu Maina Waziri, cannot be ruled out of the race even though he is yet to indicate his intention to seek the ticket.

There is also Ali Yakubu Mainasara, a federal lawmaker from Yobe who is aspiring to get the party’s ticket. The problem, analysts say is getting all the candidates together to support only one among them.

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