By Francis Sardauna
Ibrahim Danjuma has emerged the winner in the primary election of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) for Sabuwa constituency of the Katsina State House of Assembly.
He polled 152 votes to defeat his closest rival, Sada Abdulraham, who scored 41 during the primary poll held at the Sabuwa Local Government Secretariat weekend.
The by-election followed the death of the lawmaker representing the constituency, late Mustapha Abdullahi.
Abdullahi alongside eight others had on July 5th, 2019 died in an auto crash along the Funtua-Zaria expressway.
Addressing journalists shortly after the primary election, Danjuma called on other aspirants who lost in the exercise to cooperate with him to enable the party win the seat come November 30, 2019.
According to him, “I am appealing to those who contested the primary with me but lost to come and work with me so that APC will win the by-election. We are one as far as APC is concerned in Katsina.”
The primary election had in attendance the Secretary to the State Government, Mustapha Inuwa, who represented Governor Aminu Bello Masari; Chairman of the party, Shitu Shitu; national officials of the party and was monitored by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) officials, security agencies and the media.
With the emergence of Danjuma as the APC candidate for the by-election, he would square up with Shafiu Inono of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the November 30 poll.
INEC had slated November 30, 2019 for the by-election after due consultation with critical stakeholders including security agencies.
The commission also disclosed that out of the 63,135 eligible voters registered by INEC in the constituency, only 61,991 have collected their Permanent Voter Cards (PVCs) leaving a total of 1,142 PVCs uncollected.
