The Peoples Democratic Party, Borno, on Sunday held parallel primaries to elect candidates to contest the 2019 governorship election in the state.
The News Agency of Nigeria reports that seperate congresses were held by two factions of the party to elect the party’s flag-bearers in the forthcoming election.
The Usman Baderi’s faction held their exercise at the secretariat with only two candidates, Muhammed Wakil and Alhaji Bukar Kyari, contesting the election.
Wakil, a former Minister of State Works, said they held seperate primaries because they were opposed to the conduct of the election by Zanna Gadama’s faction.
He alleged that Gadama’s faction abused earlier court order, describing the exercise as “null and void”.
Wakil claimed that the Court of Appeal had ruled in favour of Baderi as the recognised chairman of the party.
He said: “What the other faction is doing is illegality of the highest order because we are the ones legally recognised by the court of law. So we are conducting election and submitting result to the national body.
“If they see reasons to accept the result fine, and if they dont, I am sure some of us remember the case of Rotimi Ameachi.
“You cannot just build something out of nothing and expect it to stay. The issue of impunity and illegality has to stop in the country, political parties have to behave.
“You cannot come out one day and start blaming the other party when you are also guiding impunity.”
On his part, Kyari lamented that the national working committee of the party chose to recognised an illegal faction despite existing court order.
Kyari said: “We as law abiding citizens will not indulge in illegalities, we shall seek redress in competent court of law for our rights.
“Therefore, we will conduct our elections here. We will invite the INEC to monitor it and then come up with the authentic delegates that have been elected this October.”
However, Gadama said his faction had secured a court injunction, which ordered that the status quo be maintained.
Gadama said that the state PDP remains the authentic party in the state that should hold primary elections.
He said: “The national PDP secretariat recognises only one PDP in Borno, which is the one I am currently heading as a Chairman.
“This is why they sent the INEC officials and other observers to come and monitor the elections we are currently conducting.”
Meanwhile, Alhaji Muhammad Imam, emerged winner of the election.
Declaring the result, Gabriel Kataf, the Chairman Electoral Committee, said Imam scored 2, 685 votes and his closest opponent Kyari scored 52 while Wakil scored 22 votes.
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