Emulate President Jonathan, Yobe IPAC Chairman Advises Governorship Candidates

The Chairman of Inter-Party Advisory Council (IPAC) in Yobe, Alhaji Umar Kukuri, on Sunday advised Governorship candidates in next Saturday’s election, to emulate the sportsmanship of President Goodluck Jonathan, by accepting defeat if they lost in a transparent election.

Kukuri, who made the call at a press conference in Damaturu, said Jonathan’s courageous action had opened a new chapter in Nigeria’s democracy .

“If the president can concede defeat, there is no candidate that is too big to concede defeat after losing election.

“Let us be reminded that in every election, there must be winners and losers; we should, in the spirit of sportsmanship as exemplified by President Jonathan, accept election results in good faith” he said.

He commended the people of the state for their courage and determination, who turned out massively to participate in the elections, in spite of the security challenges.

He also commended security agencies in Yobe, for discharging their duties with high sense of patriotism and professionalism during the elections.

The chairman lauded the use of card readers by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), saying it had reduced election rigging substantially.

He however called on the commission to address the problem of logistics and the inability of the card readers to capture finger-prints in some areas.

Meanwhile, 10 political parties in the state said they had adopted Alhaji Adamu Waziri of PDP as their sole candidate to contest the governorship election against the incumbent, Alhaji Ibrahim Gaidam of APC.

Alhaji Mohammed Adam, spokesman of the parties, said Waziri had been adopted by the National Democratic Party, Alliance for Democracy, Action Congress of Nigeria, United Nigeria Peoples Party, and Progressives Peoples Alliance.

He listed the other parties as Democratic Peoples Party, Labour Party, Mega Peoples Political Party, National Democratic Party and New Democrats.

“We endorsed Alhaji Adamu Waziri as ourr sole candidate because we have strong faith in Waziri changing the phase of development in the state,” he said.

However, Alhaji Abubakar Bakabe, Secretary of the APC in the state, dismissed the adoption, describing the 10 political parties as, “non –existing” and therefore had “no followership”.

“APC is not scared of an empty merger; we are adequately prepared to beat PDP in the governorship elections, like we did in the presidential election.

“The path to defeating PDP is a regular terrain and APC is more prepared this time to crush PDP with landslide victory.

“We are therefore expecting them to congratulate us very soon, in the spirit of sportsmanship, as exemplified by the PDP national leader.” Said the secretary (NAN)