Former member of the House of Representatives in Kaduna, Isa Ashiru, has emerged the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) candidate for the Kaduna governorship election.
He polled a total of 414 votes to defeat his closest rival and former Director General of the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA), Sani Sidi, who polled 260 votes.
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The results from the highly anticipated contest was announced at the Sir Ahmadu Bello Stadium in Kaduna around 4:30am.
Ashiru was also the party flag-bearer in the 2019 governorship election but was defeated by incumbent Governor Nasir El-Rufai of the All Progressives Congress (APC).
Daily Trust reports that other contestants were former Governor of the state, Mukhtar Ramalan Yero, who polled 28 votes, Barrister Sani Abbas, who polled 15 votes, former Accountant General of the state, Haruna Saeed, who got 11 votes and activist and former senator of the eight assembly, Shehu Sani who polled two votes.
About 30 votes were declared as invalid.
Less than 24 hours to the election, one of the aspirants, Yusuf Datti Baba-Ahmed, pulled out of the race, with sources close to him claiming “money politics” had taken over the PDP contest.
His action was followed by a tweet by Sen. Shehu Sani who categorically stated that he would not pay any delegate to vote for him and no one should pay for him to be voted.
“I welcome votes based on my agenda for the good people of Kaduna State. We can’t build or develop our country through a dishonest leadership recruitment system,” Sani had stated.