Bauchi bye-election: APC loses Dogara’s LGA

The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) emerged victorious in Bogoro local government area of Bauchi state in the Bauchi south senatorial district bye-election.

Yakubu Dogara, speaker of the house of representatives, is from the local government area.

There are reports that Dogara is planning to defect from the All Progressives Congress (APC) to the PDP following his disagreement with Mohammed Abubakar, governor of the state.

Ladan Salihu, candidate of the PDP in the election, defeated his APC rival in Bogoro.

Salihu, a former broadcaster, got 6,646 votes as against the 3,992 votes scored by the APC candidate, Lawal Yahaya Gumau.

Collation of the bye-election result is ongoing.

Apart from Salihu and Gumau, six other candidates took part in the election, including a former governor of the state, Isa Yuguda, who ran on the platform of Green Party of Nigeria.

Others are Haruna Ayuba (African Democratic Congress ), Aminu Tukur (Action Peoples party), Usman Hassan (Kowa Party), the only woman in the race Maryam Bargel (Social Democratic Party), Husseini Umar (New Nigeria Peoples Party) and Usman Chaledi (People for Democratic Change).

Activities at the collation centre in Bauchi resumed on Sunday after disruption  by the rain on Saturday.

In Dass local government, the APC candidate won 7,432 votes, while PDP got 4028. Yuguda of GNP got 2,117, and the SDP 1,009.

In Toro local government, APC got 30,658, while PDP came a distant second with 8420 votes. GPN and NNPP trailed with 5,624 and 8075 votes.

APC also led in Kirfi local government with 11,051 votes. PDP got 3336 votes, out of a total 17043 valid votes cast.

The results for Bauchi, Tafawa-Balewa and Alkaleri are now being awaited.

Before the announcement of the collated results, the Bauchi resident electoral commissioner called on participants to be magnanimous in victory and gallant in defeat.

The bye-election followed the death of Ali Wakili who occupied the seat. Wakili died in March.