By our Correspondents
@Katsina City News
Questions have been raise by the public as to why the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has not been able to win governorship and House of Assembly elections in Katsina state.
However, the party’s performance during the Presidential and Federal Assemblies elections was far better where the party won some sits to the House House of Representatives and even generated more votes to the presidential candidate. But during the governorship election, the story is different where the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) took over the entire state without much stress.
The APC had a field day without any challenge from the opposition PDP during the governorship and House of Assembly elections in the state. There were some one, two or three House of Assembly seats that were attempts to have been taken by candidates of the NNPP, PRP and PDP which they two lost to APC.
This sequence raises questions as to what must have happened in the presidential election that has not happened during the governorship election?
In our investigation digging into the matter, we have spoken to several individuals that matter in the politics of the state within the PDP.
Some of those we spoke with were candidates that lost elections, some were members of the governorship campaign committee of Senator Yakubu LADO while others are the party’s elders.
We were able to extract this piece for the discussions we had with the people over a period of days.
After the governorship election was concluded, the PDP stakeholders in the state had an emergency news briefing at their campaign office in katsina,where they announced that along with their governorship candidate, they are going to challenge the conduct of the election in court.
During the emergency meeting, the stakeholders asked Yakubu Lado if he was going to court or the party should go. He stated that it should be announced to their supporters and the public that both himself and the party are going to court to challenge the conduct of the election.
It was with his consent that the announcement of taking legal action against the election was made. This was also confirmed to our reporter by one of the persons we spoke with.
“We waited for the candidate to raise a legal team that will prepare all the needed facts to challenge the election in court. Unfortunately, it was only 48 hours remaining for us to place our case in tribunal court that he came out to announce that he was no more going to court.
“We were all shocked by the announcement which we see as deliberate. No lawyer would have prepared and compiled successful documentation in 72 hours let alone 48 hours. We were all shocked and dissatisfied with the decision which left us in awe all night exchanging calls” he stated.
Another member of the PDP campaign committee also spoke to us on the reason why the party refused to take legal action on the conduct of the governorship election after making a declaration earlier. We also asked why the party delayed making any announcement until it was only 48 hours to the elapsing of time based on allegations clearly stated in the media.
He said “we have received several information since we were in the campaign season going round that the PDP governorship candidate is a leading federal government contractor from Katsina state, especially at the Federal Ministry of Works. We were campaigning and receiving information on the types of contracts he was receiving at that time. This raised doubts in us as to the commitment of our candidate to the party. How could he be receiving contracts from a ruling party he is opposing? Unless there is something else underground not known to us.”
The allegations from most members of the PDP in the state include that there is an arrangement from the top stopping Lado from seeking any legal redress on the conduct of the election. Others believe that he deliberately did it because he is a beneficiary of the government and could not challenge it in court, he therefore deceived the party until it was late before he responded on the issue of legal action against the election.
All members of the party we spoke with, as well as the stakeholders have confirmed to us that Yakubu Lado did not at any time call on any of them before taking the decision to dump the planned legal action. It was in a one-minute phone discussion that he told one of the party leaders that he was no longer interested in taking any legal action and thereafter refused to pick calls from anybody again.
PDP TICKET AND YAKUBU LADO!
A leading member of the campaign committee told our reporter that when Lado got the ticket to contest under the PDP, and aftermath, the party broke into three camps in the state. There were those who left the party, like Hamisu Gambo Danlawan Katsina, there is the faction of former governor Shema that didn’t announced dumping the party but later stayed and fought the party from within and there are those that were committed to the party and stood firm. “That was how we stayed behind in the party and suffered all the hardships in silence” he stated.
“Those former and members of the party earlier have warned us severally to be careful but we didn’t listen to them as we were committed to the party like sincerely” he said.
All the campaign committee members we spoke to have confirmed to us that Yakubu Lado never rented any campaign office or bought any vehicle, let alone motor cycle for his campaign.
“He had no campaign office in the entire state from the capital city down to the local governments, none. Would any sincere candidate truly contest like this?” He added.
Our investigation has also confirmed this allegation of not renting any campaign office to be true. What we are yet to confirm is whether he compensated those that opened the campaign offices and also provided vehicles for his campaign wagon.
We have also found those that spent their personal funds for the campaign that were promised repayment but are yet to receive anything. Some are already confused as to what action to take next.
Another allegation is that of refusal to provide campaign funds at the Funtua zone. Politicians in the region used their personal funds hoping to be refunded. He is the only source of the campaign funds and has planned and executed his own spendings accordingly.
” 95% of PDP agents were not paid during governatorial and state assembly elections, allawonce of securities was not paid and many funds which was allocated for that election was not disbursed by the governatorial candidate”” said a source which we later confirmed
He sometimes uses his biological children to disburse some funds or campaign materials as our investigation has also revealed.
” The funds was to get more votes, but not with intent of winning the election” said a source whose was among the beneficiaries.
Even a day to the election, he had refused to disburse some very important logistic funds which had helped a lot in losing the election. Candidates of the party were left to themselves like orphans without any assistance from anywhere.
How much did Yakubu Lado spend?
Our investigation had access to the campaign budget plans of both the presidential and the governorship campaigns in the state which were not used. This was also confirmed to us by a member of the Atiku Abubakar campaign committee in the state, that the budget was not implemented.
After an estimated statistics, we can confirm that Yakubu Lado had not only refused to fully fund campaign activities but had also tremendously profited from the 2023 elections. There are funds that are confirmed to have been sent to him that have not been used during the campaign. Atiku Abubakar assisted his governatorial campaign funds as well as some PDP governors across the country. No one can say the exact figures but him. There are also individuals that have given their contributions to him which he also collected.
Yakubu Lado had not spent up to 40 percent of the funds that went through him for both the presidential as well as the governorship campaigns. He had also profited from refusing to seek legal redress on the conduct of the election.
“We were so committed to the party that it was at the last minute that we noticed that he was making a fool of us, he was trading with us, but it was too late for us to act. He was not serious about contesting. We meet with him in the night and he meets with another group in the day time” another strong source confirmed.
The issue of campaign funds is before court at the moment and the party leadership is waiting for him to come and explain how the funds were spent.
What Yakubu Lado has to say about the allegations:
We have exhausted all available ways to get Yakubu Lado to respond to the allegations but could not reach him. We have called him severally without any response and have also sent text messages to him, all to no avail. However, the only response we had from him was “I am not around, until I return”.
We also sent a message to him seeking to discuss with us on phone if we could not meet face-face, but he did not respond. Whenever we get his response our readers will surely hear from us.
This investigation was led by Danjuma Muhammad Katsina.
Katsina city news
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Jaridar taskar labarai
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