By-election: Adamawa CPC Rejects INEC’s Approved Candidates

By: Daji Sani

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has pasted the list of candidates of political parties who will participate in the Nassarawo/Binyeri State Constituency in Adamawa State House of Assembly by-election schedule for May 11.

The names of candidates released by INEC include Mathias Yohanna for the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN); Gerson Kasuwa, candidate of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA); Umar Abdulkarim  for the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP);  Umar Kaigama is the flag bearer of Kowa party; while Ibrahim Umar Wayere will contest on the platform of the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC).

Sequel to the release of names of the candidates for the by-election, the CPC, Adamawa State chapter has rejected Wayere, claiming that the party through its national chairman, Mr. Tony Momoh, had on April 24 written a letter of withdrawal of the candidature of Wayere from the election.

The CPC said it would support the candidature of the ACN candidate in the forthcoming by-election in order to facilitate the merger process going on in the state.

The CPC disclosed the hint through the spokesman of the Contact and Mobilisation Committee of CPC, Musa Kamale, at party’s secretariat in Yola, he said the candidature of Wayere was a schemed by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) with some influential members of CPC in the state to disrupt the merger process with other political parties.

Kamale said Wayere was a bonfide member of the PDP who even participated in PDP primaries held at Nassarawa/Binyeri recently to elect a candidate for PDP for the state House of Assembly election.

He said he manipulated and bought his ways into the CPC through the active participation of some bigwigs of the PDP.

He disclosed that the said candidate was never screened by the CPC state officials and there was no primary conducted for him in order to authenticate his candidature, adding that on noticing his antics, the party in the state immediately complained to the national headquarters of the party, where the national chairman eventually wrote a letter to INEC.

The letter read: “Withdrawal of Candidate for Nassarawo/Binyeri State Constituency, Adamawa State House of Assembly By-election.

“We write to withdraw our letter dated in respect of the above subject matter nothing that the submission of the candidate close/on May 19. We also confirm as discussed that our great party the Congress for Progressive Change, CPC, will not be fielding any candidate for the by-election by this withdrawal. We thank you for your usual understanding and assure you of our regard for esteemed office.”