Kaduna Central: Why We Conducted Primaries Within 7 Days – PDP Chair

Chairman of the People’s Democratic Party (PDD), Kaduna state Chapter, Hassan Hyet, has explained the reason why the election for the Kaduna Central Senatorial election was conducted within seven days.

Hyet, while speaking to newsmen in Kaduna at the weekend debunked the news making the rounds that the leadership of the party is partisan and out to favour one particular candidate over another, being the reason for the quick conduct of the primaries against the stipulated 14 days as pronounced by the federal high court.

Recall that the federal high court in Kaduna nullified the candidature of Lawal Usman popularly known as Mr. LA, as the flag bearer of the party for the Kaduna Central zone, which was challenged by Usman Ibrahim Sardaunan Badarawa.

Upon nullifying the primaries, the court ordered the party to conduct a re-run election between the duo of Lawal Usman and Usman Ibrahim within 14 days of its verdict.

However, Lawal Usman who was not satisfied with the federal high court judgement is currently challenging the judgement at the appeal court.

While explaining the reason for the quick conduct of the primaries, the Chairman of the party said, “the danger that we foresaw is that assuming we did not conduct the primaries and 14 days expired and Mr. LA did not win at the appeal court, that means PDP will not have candidate for the Kaduna central in the forthcoming election.

“I want to tell everybody that as a party, and me being the Chairman of the party, I monitor political developments in other parties just like other parties do monitor ours, I realised that, if we do not go into that primary re-run early, we could end up having serious problems, that may deprive the people of the central senatorial district a candidate for the senatorial seat.

“I said so because everyone knows there was a room for appeal and Mr. LA wrote one, but the appeal did not stop the party from continuing with its exercise since there was no order from the court that the judgement from the lower court should be kept, in that case, we acknowledged that there was an appeal and there was no any court order stopping us from continuing, and we want to make it clear if he (Mr. LA) wins the appeal, he takes back his ticket.

“As the Chairman of the party, I would not allow to see that the party that I support go into this problem, so, our conduct of the primaries is not in any way against anybody and we want people to give both sides a fair hearing whenever they are talking about this issue. We have made it clear that everyone in the party is our own,” Hyet explained.

Speaking on the attitude of Mr. LA to the leadership of the party, the Chairman of the party explained that several efforts made by the party to settle the matter out of court prior the federal high court judgement were frustrated by Mr. LA as he never made himself available for the reconciliation meeting, even with the Vice Presidential candidate of the party in attendance.