Niger PDP Assures Aspirants of Free, Fair Primaries

Laleye Dipo in Minna

The Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP) in Niger State has assured all aspirants for the party’s tickets of free and fair conduct of its primary elections.

The first in the series of primary election would take place for the selection of House of Assembly candidates on Wednesday.

The State chairman of the PDP, Mr. Tanko Beji, gave this assurance on yesterday while addressing all the aspirants at the party secretariat during which he also told them to maintain the highest degree of orderliness during the congresses.

“We are going to conduct a free fair and transparent congress if we cannot build on our previous standards we will not go below it” he declared.

He distributed the delegates’ lists to all the aspirants and challenged them to verify the names on the lists to ascertain they were those elected at the local governments.

All the aspirants in attendance expressed satisfaction with the preparation for the congress and charged the State Working Committee to ensure neutrality as promised.

Meanwhile, Beji has confirmed that five members of the party have purchased forms to contest for the single governorship ticket with all of them coming from the Niger South Senatorial Zone.

According to him, four aspirants would slug it out for the senatorial ticket in the Niger South, adding that two aspirants from the Niger East Zone and one from the Niger North Senatorial Zone have been returned unopposed from.

Among those contesting the governorship ticket of the party are former Commissioner for Local Government, Mr. Isah Liman Kantigi; former Minister of Pports, Mr. Abdulrahaman Gimba; former Member of the House of Representatives, Mr. Sani Idris Kutigi, and former Niger State Director Department of Petroleum Resources, Mr. Isah Jankara.

“No wonder the airline ran itself into deep financial crisis and began to owe salaries unprecedentedly. But for the intervention of the unions, which threatened to direct workers to withdraw services to the leased aircraft, Aero would still have been under the bondage of the House of 5A’s contract.

“So, who arranged such a murky lease? And was it a deliberate ploy to bring the airline down?” he asked.

The unions said they were exposing the ills in the airline for concerned authorities to know; so that when they take action the unions would not be told that it was unexpected and without consultation as already they have had course to write the management of Aero on these issues stated but they did not get response from the airline.