Yusuf kicks as Takai emerges ‘Kano PDP’ gov’ship candidate
A two-time gubernatorial candidate, Malam Salihu Sagir Takai, yesterday, emerged as Kano State governorship candidate of the Senator Mas’ud El-Jibril Doguwa-led faction of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Daily Trust can report.
But Engr. Abba Yusuf, the son-in law to ex-governor Rabiu Kwankwaso, who earlier emerged as the gubernatorial candidate of the party has dismissed the latest development, saying it was not possible for Takai to fly the ticket of the party without the consent of delegates and other statutory stakeholders.
Daily Trust reports that Takai emerged a day after a report which quoted Kwankwaso threatening that he would dump the PDP if the party’s top echelon tampered with the list of candidates returned from the parallel primaries he held for the various offices, including the governorship, national and state assembly.
Takai was said to have been elected as candidate of the Doguwa-led PDP during a stakeholders meeting held at Legacy House, Abuja, which was a follow-up to the one organized on Wednesday.
Yesterday’s meeting was attended by many stakeholders, including Ambassador Aminu Bashir Wali, Senator Bello Hayatu Gwarzo, ex-speaker Imam Salisu Buhari and Alhaji Akilu Sani Indabawa, among others.
Confirming the development to Daily Trust, El-Jibril Doguwa said all other aspirants had now agreed to work with Takai as the party’s gubernatorial candidate for the 2019 election.
Doguwa said he personally chaired the meeting. “We have finally reached an agreement that Takai is now our candidate for governorship in Kano State,” he said.
“The party national leadership will now choose between Takai and Yusuf but for us we have chosen Takai.
“Everything is now with the leadership of the party at the headquarters to either pick Takai who is the choice of majority of members of the party in Kano or Yusuf who is the Kwankwasiyya anointed candidate.
“Kwankwaso had done his own part and we have done ours and the ball is now in the court of PDP national leadership to decide,” he said.
When contacted, one of the aspirants, Alhaji Ibrahim Al-Amin Little, said he was privy to the meeting. “Yes, we had a stakeholders’ meeting in Abuja in order to select one candidate among us and at the end of the meeting, Takai happened to be the one.
“What actually happened was that after we, the aspirants failed to select one of us as consensus candidate, we later adopted a system by which we allowed local government chairmen of the PDP to conduct election among themselves in order to pick one of us as candidate.
“Thirty-eight chairmen participated in the election and at the end Takai got 20 votes; Sadiq Aminu Wali, 16 and I got 2 votes, while the rest of the aspirants did not get a single vote. This was how Takai emerged candidate from our own side,” he said.
But Abba Yusuf, speaking through Comrade Aminu Abdulsalam, described the emergence of Takai as null and void. “They held the so-called meeting without any recognized state, zonal or national official in attendance so it will not stand,” he said.