Bauchi State governor, Bala Mohammed and former Senate President, Bukola Saraki have been picked as the northern consensus candidates of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).
One of the two would be picked at the primary election scheduled for May 29, in Abuja.
This was the outcome of the meeting of the PDP Northern Elders with former President, General Ibrahim Babangida on Friday in Minna, the state capital.
The northern PDP Elders led by Professor Ango Abdullahi were in Minna where they had a closed door meeting with the former General which lasted several hours.
The recommendation of the PDP Northern Elders was handed to journalists by Professor Ango Abdullahi at the Uphill Residence of Babangida in Minna.
The recommendation which was signed by Professor Abdullahi picked the two aspirants and urged the two to work together to make allowance for further consultations to come up with one consensus candidate.
Said Abdullahi: “The successful aspirants are hereby urged to work together to make allowance for further consultations to foster understanding among themselves and the PDP community to ensure a rancour free primaries in which all eligible candidates would be free to exercise their right.”
He said four aspirants from northern Nigeria presented themselves for the consensus including Governor Aminu Waziri Tambuwal, Governor Bala Mohammed, Dr Bukola Saraki, and Mohammed Hayatu-Deen. He said General Babangida opted for inclusion through wider consultation and assigned him to design a criteria and carry out the necessary consultations with elders and leaders across the three geopolitical zones in the north.
Ango said that the process was conducted in three stages which include candidates’ assessment, zonal assessment and PDP previous experiences.
“In the first phase, the opinions of six distinguished persons each from the three geopolitical zones were sought with regards to each of the four aspirants.
“Each of the Zonal delegates was allocated two votes to choose the first and second choice making a total of 36 votes overall.
The outcome of that consultation was as follows: seven votes for Aminu Waziri, 10 votes for Bala Mohammed, 10 votes for Bukola Saraki and five votes for Mohammed Hayatu-deen.
“One of the elders deferred his votes on grounds of continuing consultations with traditional rulers and other major stakeholders. Two members did not cast their second ballots bringing the total to 32 votes casted out of 36”, he said. He said it was then resolved that a leading aspirant from North Central and one from North East are to be presented as northern presidential candidates.
“The two would in turn be required to make further concessions so that in the end one of them would be presented as the consensus candidate, out of the four that presented themselves from the north.”
Speaking to journalists, Governor Bala Mohammed said that he and Saraki would meet to come up with one consensus presidential candidate, adding that they would do their best to build unity for the north and Nigeria
“The criteria used are transparent and acceptable to all of us. We are not proud or arrogant about this outcome, we are taking it with humility and we will make sure we reach out to others to make sure PDP comes up with a consensus candidate free of rancour and division so that we can give Nigerians the leadership they dearly need at this time.
