2023: Taraba speaker joins suit against PDP guber candidate

The speaker of the Taraba State House of Assembly, Prof. Joseph Albasu Kunini, has flung the political loyalty pledged to the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) governor, Darius Ishaku, and the fatherly loyalty to an elder statesman, General TY Danjuma, to challenge the emergence of Col Kefas Agbu, as the state PDP governorship candidate for the 2023 election.

The Speaker and Dr Hilkiah Bubajoda Mafindi jointly filed an application through their counsel, Reuben Atabo (SAN), as interested parties in the suit brought by Professor Jerome Nyameh, seeking the disqualification of Col. Agbu as the PDP governorship candidate as declared by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).

Nigerian Tribune reports that Professor Jerome Nyameh is challenging the nomination of Col. Agbu on the grounds that he did not purchase the party’s expression of interest and nomination forms; that the PDP guber candidate was not among the aspirants screened by the party’s committee in Bauchi State; and that the party’s flag bearer presided over the screening of all the aspirants that jostled for the positions in the state House of Assembly. 

The suit is also challenging the violation of Part VII, Article 1 of the Electoral Guidelines for the Primary Elections of PDP, 2022, for having failed to resign as the state party chairman.

Prof. Nyameh also submitted that the primary was held on May 25, which was only six days after Agbu resigned and many days after the screening of aspirants on April 28, when he was still the state party chairman.

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He further alleged that Col. Agbu only resigned via a letter dated May 17, 2022, which was received at the national headquarters on May 19, so should be disqualified.

It was gathered that the choice of Col. Agbu by the elder stateman, General TY Danjuma, was against the will of Governor Darius Ishaku to fulfil the power shift arrangement to the northern part of the state having come from the same southern zone with both Col. Agbu and General TY Danjuma.

Findings revealed that both the governor and speaker piped down to maintain the loyalty pledged to the elder statesman. 

In his application for the joinder, the speaker is contending that having emerged second with 31 votes in the process, he ought to be declared winner of the primary after Agbu’s nomination is nullified.