Kwara APC guber primaries stopped midway, postponed to Friday
Dele Moses, Ilorin
The primary election for the governorship ticket of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Kwara State was on Thursday postponed to Friday.
The postponement came while the election was already being conducted on Thursday the date it was earlier scheduled to be held.
It was learnt that the postponement was ordered by the national leadership of the party.
Chairman of the party in the state, Prince Sunday Fagbemi, who confirmed the postponement to newsmen, said he did not have details on why the election was cancelled midway and postponed to the following day.
“We don’t have details for the cancellation other than the fact that the team from the national office came and instructed that the election holds tomorrow,” he stated.
Meanwhile, a few hours before the commencement of the cancelled election on Thursday, eight aspirants, among the 16 of them, had announced they were withdrawing from the race for Ambassador Abdulfatai Yahaya Seriki, the Governor AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq’s preferred successor.
The aspirants who stepped down for Seriki were Dr. Salako Oluwatoyin, Captain Ahmad Mahmoud, Prof Wale Sulaiman, Dr. Mohammed Bio, Dr. Toyin Alabi, Hajia Aisha Patigi, Sen Ibrahim Oloriegbe, and the Speaker of the House of Assembly, Hon. Yakubu Salihu Danladi.
They were said to take the decision when Seriki, after being endorsed by the governor, held a strategic engagement with them and some key stakeholders in the state,
They were said to have unanimously resolved to support his candidature in the interest of unity and continuity of Governor AbdulRazaq’s achievements.
The meeting reportedly ended with a renewed commitment to party cohesion, issue-based engagement, and a peaceful primary process capable of further strengthening the APC in Kwara State.
Before the primary election was discontinued on Thursday, members of the APC trooped out in Kwara Central Senatorial District to participate in the electoral process as early as 8:am for the exercise that eventually started at 12:noon across the state.
At Gambari ward II, Karumo in Ilorin East, a Sokoto State-born visually-impaired Abubakar Gobir told newsmen that he and his mates and colleagues were at the arena to exercise their civic right as loyal party members.
Another visually-impaired, Rufai Yusuf, also from Sokoto State, declared: “We are with our families to pay goodness with goodness, we are all here for Yahaya Seriki.”
At Adewole and Alananmu wards in Ilorin West, the situation tilted to the advantage of Seriki as the shout: “Sai Yahaya” rent the air.
In Kwara South, Alhaji Adebayo Yakeen A.K.A Baba blue, at Ganmo/Idanfian said they did not see electoral officers to conduct the exercise, “but we ordered ourselves to queue up and we counted ourselves and have since sent the results to our leadership in the state.”
However, Mr. Busari Olaiya Lukman and Alhaji Mustapha, also known as Leko, both ward officers, urged journalists to disregard Adebayo’s claim, explaining that the ward chairman went to the state secretariat for electoral materials.
 in Kwara State was on Thursday postponed to Friday. ){kind=link}