Former Governor of Kogi State, Prince Abubakar Audu, yesterday emerged the candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the state governorship election slated for November 21, 2015.
Declaring the results in the early hours of Sunday, Chief Returning Officer for the exercise, Governor Nasir El-Rufai of Kaduna State, said Audu defeated his closest rival, Alhaji Yahaya Bello.
Audu who governed Kogi between 1999 and 2003 polled 1,109 or 36.43 per cent of the total votes cast by the 3,044 delegates accredited by the electoral panel to clinch the ticket ahead of Bello’s 703 votes.
A former Senator, Nurudeen Abatemi-Usman, scored 400 votes to place third, followed by Sanusi Abubakar with 309 votes, while Hadiza Ibrahim, the only female of the 28 aspirants, scored four votes.
El-Rufai urged Audu and other contenders to quickly close ranks and work together to ensure victory for the party in the coming election.
Responding, Audu thanked members of the panel for the transparent, free and fair election, calling on other aspirants to accept the result in good faith and work with him in the interest of the party.
“Let us work together in harmony; we have serious task ahead. To unseat an incumbent is not easy but we can do it,” just as he praised his co-aspirants for their courage and comportment before and during the primary election.
Bello, who spoke on behalf of the other aspirants, lauded the members of the electoral panel for their efforts.
He advised Audu to live up to his position as a leader and father, carrying all stakeholders along, pledging that they would work with him to win the election, just as he described APC as a big family.
Audu’s emergence has, however, sent tongues wagging, given the fact that he is currently being prosecuted by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) for allegedly misappropriating N11 billion of state funds while he held sway as chief executive of the state.
Audu and one Alfa Ibn Mustapha, a former Director General of the Directorate of Rural Development, Kogi State, are being prosecuted by the anti-graft agency for alleged criminal breach of trust and misappropriation of public funds amounting to N10, 965,837,040.
At the trial of the corruption case on March 4, the EFCC also accused Audu of ordering one of his aides to assault Haruna Ashade, an EFCC operative, for daring to take his photograph in court.
Reacting, the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) said Audu’s emergence as the flag bearer of the APC has cast a serious dent on the party and President Muhammadu Buhari’s war against corruption.
PDP’s National Publicity Secretary, Chief Olisa Metuh, said the emergence of Audu who has a corruption charge to answer has shown to Nigerians how serious and determined the APC is prepared to fight corruption in the country.
“We are supporting the fight against corruption by President Muhammadu Buhari. We believe that he is very sincere about his anti-corruption crusade. He said that he will fight corruption irrespective of which party, whether APC or PDP, and we are seeing the dividends of that in the emergence of their gubernatorial candidate who incidentally has a charge of corruption hanging on his neck.
“So, we are seeing how sincere APC is about the fight against corruption. Nigerians are greatly encouraged by the determination of the APC to fight corruption with the emergence of Audu as the party’s gubernatorial candidate in Kogi.
“This underlines and underscores the seriousness with which Mr. President and the APC are fighting corruption. They said they are fighting corruption but in reality, they are only fighting PDP people,” he said.
One of the governorship aspirants in the last Saturday’s governorship primary, James Ocholi, has accepted the result and promised to work with the winner, Audu.
Ocholi who was the governorship candidate of Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) in 2011 said the Nasir El-Rufai committee that handled the primary did a good job for being transparent.
“I commend the committee for a good job done in organising a transparent primary,” he said. He further stated: “I am a party man, I will abide by the decision of the party.”
On the alleged case with EFCC, Ocholi said it was not a new thing. “It is not a new case, it has been there for some years now and the party is aware of it.”
Similarly, the former Deputy Director, Newswatch Communications Limited, Yakubu Mohammed, who was one of the aspirants, has accepted the result of the election.
“Abubakar Audu who was the former governor of the state won the primary election and it is okay with me,” he said.
On the corruption case, Mohammed said he has nothing to say about that.
The state’s party Chairman, Alhaji Haddy Ametuo, could not be reached, as several calls to his mobile phone were unanswered on Sunday evening. Agency report
