Court nullifies Kano PDP governorship primary, orders fresh election

…State Exco dumps party for APC
A Federal High Court in Kano on Monday nullified the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) governorship candidacy for not conducting primaries.

The court presided by Justice Ambrose Lewis ruled that the purported nomination of Abba Kabir as Governorship Candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) is invalidated.

Counsel to the plaintiff, Kabiru Usman, said the PDP would have to provide another governorship candidate before the coming polls.

In his remarks, PDP’s counsel, Bashir Yusuf said the verdict does not affect Abba Kabir as a candidate but the PDP as a party.

According to him, the PDP will obey court order.

A PDP gubernatorial aspirant, Ali Amin-little, had approached the court, challenging the process that led to emergence of Abba Kabir Yusuf as PDP gubernatorial candidate in Kano.

Meanwhile, the factional leadership of the PDP in Kano under Senator Mas’ud Eljibiril Doguwa has dumped the party for the All Progressives Congress (APC).

Announcing the official defection on Monday in Kano before newsmen, Doguwa said that after consultations with relevant stakeholders himself and 11 other executive members decided to move to the ruling APC as a result of irreconcilable differences between them and the National leadership under Prince Uche Secondus.

According to him, since the return of Senator Rabi’u Musa Kwankwaso to the PDP, the national leadership has sidelined him and his officials by recognising Rabi’u Suleman Bichi as the state party Chairman thereby creating two factional executives in the state.

He said that a chunk of the party’s structure in Kano was handed over to Kwankwaso, a move he recalled, was part of the main reason former Minister of Education, Malam Ibrahim Shekarau and his numerous supporters dumped the party some time last year.

He pointed out that their choice of joining APC is to join hands with Governor Abdullahi Ganduje whom he described as a man with the interest of the state at heart whose main aim is to transform the state in all ramifications.

He accused Kwankwaso of destroying the party in Kano as the party could not win any seat in the just concluded National Assembly elections which took place alongside the presidential election.

Mas’ud assured that there would be more defections in the state before the forthcoming gubernatorial and state House of Assemblies elections.