Gov. Atiku Bagudu of Kebbi State has described the emergence of Dr Nasir Idris, the National President, Nigeria Union of Teachers (NUT), as governorship candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the state as the will of God.
Bagudu stated this after the announcement of Idris as winner of the party’s primary in Birnin Kebbi on Friday.
According to him, the candidate had earlier accepted to run for the House of Representatives, before all stakeholders held a meeting and resolved to support him for the governorship race.
“In the last weeks, what we saw was evidence of Abubakar Malami, the Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice’s sacrifices.
“Malami, who was in the ballot and members of the party were waiting to cast their votes for, out of love for the nation, returned to Mr President, to help him to transform their works till 2023.
“And that is why he was unable to participate in the primary as much as we want him.
“I remember, when we had a stakeholders’ meeting few weeks ago, all stakeholders of the party enthusistically endorsed Malami.
“But as believers, power comes from God and God has shown us that it is Him who decides who takes that power.
“Today, we are happy, our brother, equally, loyal to the party, loyal to the state, the President of NUT and Deputy President of NLC, Dr Nasir Idris, has been so honoured, by the delegates to be the flagbearer of the APC.
“Dr Idris indicated his interest to be the governor, but when he was prevailed upon that, we want to present united candidate and Kebbi want to show an example at all the time.
“He graciously accepted to contest as an aspirant for the House of Representatives. Little did he know that, that humility would pay off for him to be where he is today,” Bagudu said.
The governor also commended the second runner up at the contest, Alhaji Abubakar Gari-Malam, for conceding defeat, stressing that God will surely reward him.
Earlier, Malami congratulated the winner, Bagudu and party members for the successful governorship primary, stressing that what was displayed at the event was democracy at work.
He said; “What was displayed today, is actually democracy. The essence of democracy, the essence of security, the essence of collaboration.
“Democracy has gathered us here, to collectively and individually have a say, not only in the administration of our great state, but having a voice on whom and who should be considered, whom and who, should be interested with the administration of our state.
“This has truly established what a true leader can do. Our governor has provided an atmosphere of peace, security, atmosphere of collectivity and effort of agencies of government which translated to the peaceful democracy processes today.”
While conceding the defeat, Alhaji Gari-Malam, congratulated Idris for his emergence as the party’s flagbearer, expressing happiness about the transparent and peaceful conduct of all the delegates during the election.
“In every local government, our agents were represented, it was conducted freely, there was no rancour, all our agents witnessed what had happened, including the screening, up to this point.
“We thank God for that, and all this was possible as a result of our good leader, Sen. Bagudu,” he said.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that Idris emerged the party’s governorship candidate with 1,055 votes out of the 1,090 votes cast.
Alhaji Abubakar Gari-Malam, who polled the remaining 35 votes, placed second.
It was however a poor outing for Senate Leader, Dr Yahaya Abdullahi, as he did not get a vote.
NAN
