2023: Senate Deputy Minority Whip Loses PDP Ticket

•Baba-Ahmed withdraws from Kaduna governorship race

John Shiklam

Senate Deputy Minority Whip, Senator Danjuma La’ah, has lost the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) ticket for Kaduna South senatorial seat.

In similar breath, one of the governorship aspirants of the PDP in the state, Senator Datti Baba-Ahmed, has pulled out of the race less than than 24 hours to the primary election.

La’ah, who is the first person to have served two terms since the creation of the senatorial zone, was defeated by Hon. Sunday Katung, a former member of the House of Representatives.

Katung, who was a deputy governorship candidate of the PDP in 2019, scored 112 votes to defeat Laah who scored 74 votes.

The results, which were announced in Kafanchan on Tuesday also showed that Hon. Garba Nicholas, a three term federal lawmaker, representing Jama’a/Sanga Federal Constituency, scored 52 votes while Samson Dikko and Hon. Adams Jagaba, also a three term former federal lawmaker, scored 21 and seven votes respectively.

In Kaduna Central Senatorial District, Adamu Lawal, re-emerged the party’s flag bearer, scoring 99 votes to defeat his close opponent, Ibrahim Usman who got 84 votes.

Lawal was the party’s candidate for the seat in 2019, but was defeated by the current occupant of the seat, Senator Uba Sani of the All Progressives Congress (APC), who is a governorship aspirant in the state.

In Kaduna North Senatorial Zone, Khalid Mustapha, got 257 affirmation votes to pick the ticket, being a sole candidate in the zone.

However, ahead of the PDP governorship primaries slated for today across the country, Baba-Ahmed, in a short letter addressed to the Kaduna State Chairman of the party, Mr. Hassan Hyet, said happenings in the party were “inconsistent with his purpose in politics.”

Noting that firsthand reports available to him indicated that the PDP was yet to learn lessons, Baba-Ahmed did not give details of reasons for withdrawing from the race, although it may not be unconnected to the huge amount spent by aspirants during the state assembly and House of Representatives primaries, which held on Sunday.

While pledging to remain loyal to the PDP, and not join the APC, he said, “I consequently hereby respectfully withdraw from the 2023 governorship contest of Kaduna State under our great party the PDP. I however, remain loyal and supportive. I pray for the day we get our politics right for the sake of Nigeria,” he said.

With the withdrawal of Baba-Ahmed, five aspirants, will slug it out at the primary election today.

They include Hon. Isa Ashiru, the party’s flag bearer in 2019; Sani Sidi, a former Director General of the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA); Senator Shehu Sani, Mukhtar Yero, a former governor of the state; Mr. Sani Abbas and Haruna Saeed, a former accountant general of the state.