Niger ADC Divides Over Governorship Candidate Choice

The African Democratic Congress’ efforts to choose a deputy governorship candidate to fly the party’s ticket in the 2027 general elections have fractured the party.

Arewa PUNCH reports that barely 24 hours after the party’s leadership unveiled Mamman Musa as the running mate of Dr, Mohammed Kpautagi, a faction of the party besieged the Niger State chapter of the Nigeria Union of Journalists Secretariat, Minna, Niger state and venue of the party’s unveiling to express their rejection of the candidate

The group which claimed to have come to brief journalists about their rejection of the deputy governorship candidate insisted that Musa was not among the three names given to the party’s leadership for consideration as the deputy governorship candidate.

According to the faction, their choice for their party’s running mate is a Christian deputy governor as such, the choice of Musa broke the understanding.

Our correspondent gathered that the aggrieved members from Zone B (Niger East Senatorial District) were set to brief the media and to express their displeasure when party chieftains, including both the newly unveiled deputy governorship candidate and the Chairman of the party, Ahmed El-Waziri stormed the NUJ venue to appeal for calm.

One of the aggrieved members who spoke with our correspondent on the condition of anonymity because he is not officially permitted to speak with the media said “someone must have leaked the information of our meeting to the leadership.”

The aggrieved member further told Arewa PUNCH that, “the party had agreed that the three names submitted for the deputy governorship position from Zone B must be a Christian and out of which one of them Bulus Abba scaled through.

“We were expecting Kpautagi to announce Bulus Abba but we were betrayed.

“We have held over 40 meetings on this issue and we came up with three names and settled for Bulus Abba. I can tell you for free that Mamman Musa was not even part of the three names we nominated and submitted as candidates for the deputy governorship position.

“We all agreed that the name of Abba, who is a Christian from Zone B be submitted and unveiled as the deputy governorship candidate only for us to hear that the governorship candidate, Kpautagi and some persons unveiled Mamman without our knowledge,” he lamented.

Another visibly aggrieved member who also spoke angrily over the development, said  the only option was to cast protest votes and ensure that the candidates forced on them did not win the election

“We will not allow these group of persons to hijack our party. As it is now, we are already making plans to replace the governorship candidate because obviously, he is not ready to carry everybody along,” he said.

The convener of the meeting, Hon. Mohammad Ahmed, was to later address journalists after a closed door meeting that lasted over five hours in which Ahmed said that a 10-man committee had been set up to address the issue and come up with its position within a week.