APC primaries: Niger Governor, Bello in ‘dangerous scheming, manipulation’ of delegates list

With few days to party primaries to elect candidates that will fly the party flags in the 2023 general election, there is uneasy calm in the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) in Niger state following an alleged change in the delegates list by the party in the State.

This development has unsettled both the aspirants and party stakeholders across the state and they are therefore threatening a total showdown with the party if the delegates list earlier submitted to the Independent Electoral Commission (INEC) is tempered with.

The change in the list, according to reliable sources which disclosed to CAPITAL POST in Minna, Sunday said, some of the aspirants affected are, governorship, Senatorial, House of Representatives and the State Assembly delegates lists.

It was further gathered that the worst hit and very dangerous manipulation of the delegates list to favour Niger State governor, Alhaji Sani Bello was the Senatorial and House of Representatives from Niger North Senatorial District which is referred to as zone C.

According to some of the aspirants who spoke to our correspondent, believed that it was a desperate attempt to impose some candidates on the people.

A party stakeholders from Niger North Senatorial District who spoke with our correspondent on the condition of anonymity, said the delegates list from Agwara, Rijau and Kontagora which is the home of the governor are heavily tempered with “because the state governor, Alhaji Abubakar Sani is interested in the Senate seat from the zone and the party is bent on ensuring that he pick the party ticket against all odds”.

“You remember that the party Chairman, Alhaji Haliru Zakari Jikantoro told the whole world in a trending video that he is in full support of the governor’s Senatorial ambition, so we should expect something like this from the zone because he knows that the governor is not popular in the zone and can not defeat the incumbent Senator, Aliyu Sabi Abdullahi.

“As I speak with you now, the governor has not gone to anywhere in the zone to campaign to the delegates ahead of the delegates election because he wants the party Chairman to impose him on the people.

It will not work because the people will resist any attempt to force him on them.

“The people of the zone can not afford to have a diaspora Senator in 2023, therefore, if the party succeeded in manipulating the process and imposed him on the people as candidate, that will be the end of APC in the zone because the people will wait for them in the general election.

“Their power will only stop at the party level, but at the general election, the people will reply them, and that is when the people will also exercise their power with their votes”, adding that “this governor can not win a free and fair contest against the incumbent in the zone”.

Recalled that in the trending video which has continue to generate concern among party stakeholders in the state, the Chairman openly declared that though as the party Chairman, he is not supposed to take side with any aspirant ahead of the party primaries, he has no choice than to throw his weight behind the senatorial ambition of the Governor.

The Chairman was said to have made the declaration when he played host to a former Commissioner for Lands and Housing in the state, and House of Representatives aspirant for Agwara/Borgu Federal Constituency, Barrister Mouktar Ibrahim Nasale in his office in Minna.

According to the Chairman in the trending video, “I am not supposed to do this as the Chairman of the party but am saying this to the hearing of anybody who cares to listen that I am fully in support of the Governor’s aspiration.

“In fact, I am not only in support, I am in the fore front of the struggle, and I want the whole world to know about this”, he declared.

There are similar agitations over the change in the delegates list in other zones of the state, and this is not going down well with party stakeholders who vowed never to allow this criminal manipulation of delegates list.

Although the governor was said to have disassociate himself from the ongoing manipulation of delegates list, saying that he does not want to be senator through fraudulent means, and therefore the right process must be followed.

But one of the governorship aspirants, Alhaji Mohammed Bago was also said to have warned the party to revert back to the original delegates list to avoid crisis ahead of the primary election.

In the same vein, the Vice Chairman, North Central of the party, Alhaji Bawa Rijau has equally expressed reservations over the reports of the manipulation of the delegates list, stressing that he would not want the party to be engulfed in crisis in his state ahead of the primary election therefore urged the party to be neutral in its handling of the party primaries.