There’s confusion over who is the winner of the Zamfara North All Progressives Congress (APC) Senatorial primary election as two different aspirants, Sahabi Ya’u Kaura and Senator Tijjani Yahaya Kaura were declared winners by different officials of the party.
Our correspondent reports that chairman of the Senatorial Primary Election, Dr. Auwal Abdullahi Aliyu declared the incumbent Senator belonging to the state minister for Defense Bello Matawalle camp, Sahabi Ya’u Kaura as the winner of the primary while later, the secretary of the committee Sani Abdullahi declared Senator Tijjani Yahaya Kaura belonging to the Director General Presidential campaign council Senator Abdul’aziz Yari camp as the winner of the primary.
The APC chairman for the North Senatorial district primary election Dr. Auwal Abdullahi Aliyu, had announced the result after the election said Sahabi Ya’u scored a total of 49,176 votes to defeat his closet opponent, Tijjani Yahaya Kaura, who scored 9,628 votes and Abdullahi Sani Shinkafi came third scored 6,206 votes.
Dr. Auwal described the election as credible and accepted by all aspirants.
‘Having satisfied the requirements of the law and the APC Primary election guidelines, I Dr. Auwal Abdullahi the chairman of the APC Zamfara North senatorial zone primary election declared Sahabi Yau Kaura as the winner of the primary election,’ Dr. Auwal declared.
Senator Tijjani Yahaya Kaura has however insisted that his declaration as the winner of the All Progressives Congress (APC) senatorial primary election for Zamfara North was authentic, saying the result was jointly collated and announced by members of the election committee sent by the party’s national headquarters.
Addressing journalists at his country home in Kaura Namoda, Kaura alleged that the chairman of the primary election committee was hijacked by some anti-democratic elements and taken to an unknown destination.
He said the committee chairman was abducted and subsequently announced a purported result single-handedly, declaring Senator Sahabi Ya’u as the winner, contrary to the outcome jointly collated by the majority of the committee members.
According to him, the majority of the panel members had collated the results and officially declared him winner of the primary election.
Kaura described the alleged abduction of the committee chairman as an attempt to truncate democracy, insisting that the electorate would not succumb to such an attempt.
He also dismissed claims by his opponents that another candidate had been declared winner, describing the purported declaration as null and void and without any effect.
Our correspondent recalls that one of the aspirants, Sani Abdullahi Shinkafi had earlier instituted a suit against the APC, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), and Senator Sahabi Ya’u over alleged irregularities in the party’s primary election for Zamfara North Senatorial
The appeal court in Sokoto ordered for a fresh primary election and was accepted by the APC, while a new date was set for the primary election which is again produced the current disputed result.