Govs thrash Jonathan

Peoples Democratic Party governors in the North East geopolitical zone, on Wednesday, humbled President Goodluck Jonathan as their candidate thrashed Alhaji Bamanga Tukur at the party’s regional congress. Tukur, whose candidacy for the position of the National Chairman of the party enjoys the support of the Presdent, polled only two delegate votes while the party’s Acting National Secretary, Musa Babayo, got 14 votes.
After the congress, which held inside the Multipurpose Indoors Hall, Bauchi, amid tight security, 54-year old Babayo was immediately adopted as the consensus candidate of the zone for the PDP National Convention holding in Abuja on Saturday.
The national chairmanship position is zoned to the North-East. The North-East zone comprises, Adamawa, Borno, Bauchi, Gombe, Taraba and Yobe states and PDP governors of Bauchi, Taraba, Adamawa and Gombe states attended the congress.
The outgoing National Vice-Chairman, North-East, Senator Paul Wampana, who announced the result in Bauchi, said two former ministers who were also in the race – Ibrahim Bunu (Federal Capital Territory) and Shetima Mustapha (Interior) – also scored two votes each. A former Governor of Bauchi State, Adamu M’uazu, and the party’s National Publicity Secretary, Prof. Rufai Ahmed Alkali, got one vote each.
Wampana said the choice of Babayo would not prevent Tukur and other aspirants, who felt dissatisfied, from contesting at the convention. He also said that Babayo’s endorsement was taken at the party’s caucus meeting on Tuesday in Bauchi since the party zoned the national chairmanship position to the North-East.
He explained that the stakeholders endorsed him because he was somebody “who is versatile, being an insider for long.”
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