Former Governor of Bayelsa State and immediate past Minister of State for Petroleum, Mr. Timipre Sylva, has emerged the governorship candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) for the November 11 election in the state.
In Kogi State, a former Auditor-General of the state, Mr. Usman Ahmed Ododo has also been confirmed as the governorship candidate of the party for the November election.
However, the other governorship aspirants – Senator Smart Adeyemi; former Minister of State for Labour and Productivity, Professor Stephen Ocheni; son of the late ex-Governor Abubakar Audu, Shuiabu; and a member of the National Working Committee (NWC) of the APC, Murtala Yakubu Ajaka, have rejected the results of the primary election of the party held in the state.
Sylva defeated the former candidate of the party in the last gubernatorial election, Mr. David Lyon and four other aspirants to emerge winner of contest, which took place across the 106 wards in the eight local government areas (LGAs) of the state.
Sylva polled a total of 52,061 votes from the 55,141 accredited delegates.
While Lyon came a distant third with 1,872 votes, Joshua MacIver came second with 2,078 votes.
Lyon had won the majority votes in the last gubernatorial election and was declared governor-elect in the state, before he was removed by the Supreme Court on the eve of his inauguration.
Announcing the results of the primary election at the party secretariat in Yenagoa, the chairman of the APC Primary Election Committee, Maj. Gen. Ahmed Jibrin (rtd), said declared Sylva emerged as the winner, having scored the highest number of votes.
Jibrin, who had earlier assured party members of a free, transparent and peaceful primary, commended the peaceful conducts of the election.
Meanwhile, the candidature of Ododo as the governorship candidate of the party in Kogi State was yesterday ratified by a Special Congress of the party, as stipulated in the guidelines for the primary election, which was held on Friday.
The special congress, presided over by the Chairman of the Kogi APC Primary Election Committee, Governor Bello Matawalle of Zamfara State, was held yesterday at the Muhammadu Buhari Civic Centre, in Lokoja, the state capital.
The ratification followed the emergence of Ododo, a former Auditor-General for Local Governments in the state, as the APC governorship candidate at the party’s direct governorship primary election held across all the 239 wards of the state.
Announcing the results for ratification, the Secretary to the committee, who represented the Zamfara Governor, Patrick Obahiagbon, said: “After the carefully conducted primaries, devoid of rancour and with no violence recorded anywhere in the state, and having scored 78,704 votes, Alhaji Usman Ododo has been returned as the governorship candidate that will fly the party’s flag in the November 11 Governorship Election in the state.”
However, some governorship aspirants of the APC in the state have rejected the results of the primary election.
The aspirants include Senator Adeyemi, Professor Ocheni, Shuiabu Abubakar Audu, and Ajaka.
Speaking on behalf of the aggrieved aspirants at a press conference in Abuja, Senator Adeyemi alleged that no election took place to have warranted the declaration of Ododo as the governorship candidate of the APC for the state.
Olusegun Samuel in Yenagoa and Ibrahim Oyewale in Lokoja
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