By Ikechukwu Okaforadi
Ahead of the November 11, 2023 governorship elections, the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) has forwarded the names of the governorship candidates of the party for Bayelsa, Imo and Kogi states to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).
The names of the candidates of the party forwarded to the electoral umpire are Timipre Sylva, Ahmed Ododo and Hope Uzodinma respectively as governorship candidates for Bayelsa, Kogi and Imo states.
Ododo scored 78,704 to emerge as the candidate of the party. The candidature of Ododo was ratified by a Special Congress of the party, as stipulated in the guidelines for the primary election held on April 14, across all the 239 wards of the state.
However, some governorship aspirants of APC in the state including Senator Smart Adeyemi, former Minister of State for Labour and Productivity, Professor Stephen Ocheni, son of the late ex-Governor Abubakar Audu, Shuaibu and a member of the National Working Committee (NWC) of the APC, Murtala Ajaka, rejected the results of the primary election.
In Imo, no one contested against the incumbent governor, Uzodinma.
In Bayelsa State, Sylva defeated the former candidate of the party in the last gubernatorial election, David Lyon and four other aspirants, to emerge winner of the contest, which took place across 106 wards in the eight local government areas (LGAs) of the state on April 24.
Sylva scored a total of 52,061 votes from the 55,141 accredited delegates, while Lyon came a distant third with 1,872 votes and Joshua MacIver came second with 2,078 votes.
The ruling party sent a letter, dated April 17th, jointly signed by the Deputy National Chairman (North), Senator Abubakar Kyari, and the National Secretary of the party, Senator Iyiola Omisore, to the Chairman of INEC, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu.
The letter reads: “We write to forward the underlisted list of our party’s candidates to your commission for the 2023 off-season gubernatorial elections.
“His Excellency, Chief Timipre Sylva – Bayelsa State; His Excellency, Senator Hope Uzodimma – Imo State; Ahmed Usman Ododo – Kogi State.
“Above is for your information and necessary action, please.”
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