Governorship candidates of five political parties in Bauchi State namely People’s Redemption Party (PRP) Professor Ali Pate, People’s Democratic Party (PDP), Senator Bala Mohammed, Green Party of Nigeria (GPN), Alhaji Muhammed Jumba, People’s Democratic Movement (PDM) Ahmed Iliyasu and governorship aspirant of All Progressive Congress (APC) Dr Yakubu Lame have formed a coalition that might possibly lead to the presentation of one of them as formidable candidate to contest against the incumbent Governor Mohammed Abubakar in March 2019 election.
Addressing newsmen on Sunday, leader of the coalition and Elder statesman Alhaji Bello Kirfi explained that the coalition was aimed at ‘salvaging the state from the APC maladministration in the state in March 2019 election.
“This unprecedented move was taken after careful review and consultation on the abysmal performance of the APC Government in Bauchi State over the last four years. The stakeholders comprise influential political as well as community leaders from the geopolitical zones of Bauchi State “. He said.
According to him, the reason for their unanimous decision include widespread and increasing extreme poverty in the state, alleged lack of infrastructural development despite receiving more than N50 billion from federal government and other sources, pervasive youth unemployment and insignificant internally generated revenue making the state the least out of the 36 states of the federation.
“Given these overwhelming evidence of poor governance and gross incompetence, the stakeholders had expected the APC national leadership to encourage and support the people’s yearning for genuine change through due process and internal party democracy. Unfortunately, the APC failed and compounded its mistake, by further misguiding Mr President to recently recognize Governor M. A Abubakar as the APC candidate”.
“This, despite his emergence through unjust and anti-democratic means. This blunder by the national leadership of APC has heightened the risk of Mr President losing significant numbers of his loyal followers in Bauchi state”.
He said against that background, they have been left with no option but to unite in a grand coalition to defeat the APC governorship candidate in the state.
Blueprint reports that the decision by members of the opposition to form the coalition might have been triggered by the recent defection of two former governors of the state isa yuguda, Ahmed Muazu and PDP national deputy chairman Babayo Garba Gamawa.