Mr Uba Sani, the Special Adviser to Gov. Nasiru El-Rufai on Political and Intergovernmental Affairs, has picked the All Progressives Congress (APC) ticket for Kaduna Central Senatorial District, knocking out the incumbent Shehu Sani.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that Sani polled 2,088 votes to defeat Shehu Sani, who got 15 votes, although the latter withdrew from the race, describing the primary as illegal.
There were three other aspirants, who scored more votes than Shehu Sani.
Prof. Eddie Floyd-Igbo, the APC Coordinator for the Kaduna Central Senatorial Zone, declared the results of the primaries held at Umaru Musa Yar’Adua Sports Multipurpose Hall, Kaduna, on Saturday.
The APC National Working Committee (NWC) had earlier cleared Sen. Shehu Sani as the sole candidate in the race, which was resisted by the other aspirants and party loyalists in the state.
Sani who is Chairman, Senate Committee on Domestic and Foreign Debts, had earlier announced his withdrawal from the primaries.
In a statement issued by his Media Aide, Mr Abdulsamad Amadi, Sani said the exercise was illegal.
“The Office of Senator Shehu Sani has not, and will not send anybody as their representative or agent to that illegality that some desperate people are organising.
“This is because the national leadership of the APC has not scheduled any senatorial primaries in Kaduna Central today.
“Consequently, anybody that goes there does so at his or her own freewill and does not in any way represent the interest of Sen. Shehu Sani.
“The Senator and his team are law abiding citizens and loyal party members who will always obey the directives of the National leadership of our great party,” the statement said.
Meanwhile, Floyd-Igbo announced that one of the aspirants Usman Ibrahim got 129 votes in the primaries.
He also said Sen. Sani Saleh, who served Kaduna Central people in the Senate from 2011 to 2015 got 55 votes.
Another contestant, Mr Shamsudeen Shehu, got six votes, while 45 votes were declared invalid.
He said 2,383 voters were accredited from seven local government areas of the zone for the primary election.
Meanwhile, INEC has reminded all participants that it would only accept candidates forwarded to it by the national secretariats of the political parties.
The electoral body also gave the parties up till Oct. 7 to submit their candidates for the 2019 general elections.
