Governor Ishāku, Deputy, Former Gombe State Governor Clinch PDP Senatorial Tickets

The tenth Senate is once again looking likely to be an all-former governors’ affair as a sitting governor, Darius Ishāku of Taraba State and his deputy, Alhaji Haruna Manu, have won the primary elections of the People’s Democratic Party for the 2023 senatorial elections.

Ishaku, who was unopposed, won the primary election to contest for the Southern Taraba senatorial district election with 154 votes.

The primary was conducted at Wukari, the headquarters of Southern Taraba.

Manu won Taraba Central senatorial primary, scoring 143 votes to defeat Muhammed Abana who did not score any vote. The Taraba Central zone primary was conducted at Bali, the district headquarters.

The sitting senator representing Taraba Northern senatorial zone in the Senate, Alhaji Shuaibu Isa Lau, also won the primary which was conducted at Jolly Nyame Stadium in Jalingo, also the senatorial district headquarters.

Senator Lau scored 193 votes to defeat David Kassa, who scored 73 votes, Jeji Williams, who scored 5 votes and M. Bandawa who did not score any vote.

Similarly, a former Governor of Gombe State, Ibrahim Hassan Dankwambo, was on Monday declared as the candidate to fly the PDP flag for the Gombe North Senatorial District seat in the 2023 elections.

He was declared winner after two other aspirants, Senator Usman Bayero Nafada and Abdulkadir Hamma Saleh withdrew from the contest, through an affirmation letter presented at the election venue by their representatives.

Dankwambo was the candidate of the PDP during the 2019 elections, but was defeated by the incumbent, Senator Saidu Ahmed Alkali of the All Progressives Congress, APC.

Alhaji Abubakar Aliyu,who recently defected to the PDP from the Congress for Progressives Change, CPC, and was a gubernatorial candidate of the party in 2011, scored 59 votes to defeat Muhammadu Aliyu Baba who got three votes, to be declared as winner and PDP’s flag bearer for the Gombe Central senatorial seat.

For the Gombe South senatorial district, Anthony Siyako Yaro scored 59 votes in a keenly contest primary election against Hajiya Fatima Binta Bello, who scored 57 votes.

Binta Bello, a former member of the House of Representatives, was the party’s candidate in 2019, but was defeated at the general elections by Colonel Bulus K. Amos (retired) of the APC.

The PDP held its senatorial primaries across the country on Monday.