POST-MORTEM: How APC lost all senatorial seats in Nasarawa to SDP, PDP

When the 10th national assembly is inaugurated in June, and senators from the All Progressives Congress (APC) get acquainted with one another and colleagues from opposition parties, no member of the ruling party from Nasarawa will be involved in the camaraderie and backslapping that are associated with such moments.

Why? You ask.

No senate hopeful from Nasarawa APC was elected in the just concluded general election.

If only the future could impact the past, the electoral fortune of Abdullahi Sule, governor of Nasarawa, in the March 18 governorship election might have rubbed off on the senatorial elections of February 25.

But that is not the way of things.

The Social Democratic Party (SDP) took two senatorial seats in the state while the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) clinched one.

HOW APC LOST OUT TO SDP

Akwashiki Godiya of the SDP, who won the Nasarawa north senatorial seat, was first elected to the red chamber in 2019 on the APC platform.

He defected to the SDP after he couldn’t secure the APC ticket for the senatorial district in the primary election.

Godiya Akwashiki cited the alleged doctoring of the delegates list as the reason for leaving the APC.

“You are all aware of what transpired during the APC primary election in Akwanga,” he said while addressing his supporters.

“I withdrew from the race because delegates’ lists were doctored by the party. I have been under pressure by you to leave the party and today, I have answered your call to leave APC and to actualise my re-election ambition.”

LIKE GODIYA, LIKE WADADA

Aliyu Wadada, also a former member of the APC, won the Nasawara west senatorial district election on the SDP platform.

Wadada, who is a former member of the house of representatives, resigned from the APC when he failed to win the party’s ticket for the senatorial district.

The lawmaker said he dumped the APC due to the controversy that marred the primary election.

He alleged that the exercise was illegal and undemocratic.

“Wherever there is no justice, the society cannot be better. So there is no justice in APC and I know I have the followership of my people, that’s why I opted for a different platform so as to enable actualize my dreams,” Wadada had said.

“I am one politician that has always related, associated with the people, whether I am in office or not — and somebody out there feels it is time to do whatever he can and went ahead to change, doctor and manipulate the delegates list, which of course I chose not to go with that illegality.”

Wadada’s victory at the polls means he will replace Abdullahi Adamu, national chairman of the APC, who recently resigned as a senator.

ONE SEAT FOR PDP

In the Nasarawa south senatorial district poll, Onawo Mohammed of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) defeated Tanko Al-Makura of the APC.

Al-Makura, a former governor of Nasarawa, was elected to the senate in 2019 after rounding up his second term in office.

Following his defeat at the poll, Al-Makura dismissed insinuations that he might leave the party, insisting that his loyalty “remains unshakable”, and that he was working towards Sule’s triumph in his re-election bid.

The rest, they say, is history. Sule went on to secure his second term in office.

Despite the performance of the ruling party in the senate races, the APC won three out of the five house of representatives seats in the state.

The SDP took the remaining two, while PDP could not secure any seat in the lower legislative chamber.