Leadership Tussle Rocks APC Over Bassa/Jos North Federal Constituency Seat
Yakubu Busari
There is a serious political leadership tussle that has rocked the seat of late, Hon Haruna Maitala who represented Bassa/Jos North federal constituency in the House of Representatives and died on April 02, 2021.
His death followed a ghastly car crash along Keffi- Jos road on the way to Jos to attend the son’s wedding.
He was buried at Dadin Kowa, Jos on Saturday 03, 2021. Weeks later the jostle for the vacant seat in the House of Representatives started among interested politicians from both Jos North and Bassa LGs.
The party, APC in its wisdom, immediately stepped in to sanitize the political atmosphere and limit rancor.
The then chairman Chief Letep Dabang convened a meeting of the party and stakeholders from the two affected LGs of Bassa and Jos North and conveyed the party’s position and preference.
He explained that, given that the deceased hailed from Bassa LG, it was in keeping with tradition and precedence as previously done in the case of the southern senatorial seat and others, the vacancy be filled by Bassa LG which that idea didn’t go down with other aspirants.
Consequently, the party set up and announced two committees one each from the 2 LGs; with Sen T. Adudu and Alh Bashir Musa Sati heading Bassa and Jos north respectively.
Their mandate was to lobby and concretize stakeholders to understand the rationale of the party’s decision and see through a peaceful process.
After series of meetings between Bassa stakeholders and the Adudu committee, it was discovered that 20 aspirants were showing interest to contest the bye-election.
Whereas there were still agitations from Jos North with some individuals defying the party and still indicating interest too.
The Adudu committee then decided to trim down the number of Bassa aspirants through local primaries at the level of the 3 chiefdoms. Initially, there were 10 aspirants from Pengana, 4 from Irigwe, and 6 from Rukuba.
At the conclusion of the primaries, the following emerged from the respective chiefdoms: Alh. Faisal Maitala – Pengana ,Hon Lumumba Dah Adeh – IrigweAlh. Alhassan Ayiki – Rukuba.
The above list of aspirants has since been submitted to the party in anticipation of the INEC release of the schedule for the bye-election. Whereas the House of Representatives declared the seat vacant shortly before embarking on the Sallah break, the INEC schedule is being awaited as at the time of this report.
DETAIL RESULTS OF LOCAL PRIMARIES Pengana: Alh. Faisal Maitala – 48 votes Ayuba Dodo -43 Alh. Maitala – 41 votes Hon Chindo Gonna (incumbent LG chair) – 27 votes. Hon Wanga Lemoro – 7 votes Withdrew Prof Shem Bindas. Hon Talatu Apini ,Hon Yakubu Sanda,Alh. Yau PJ ,Mr Amumu. Irigwe:Hon Lumumba Dah Adeh – 28 votes,Hon Jeofrey Teme – 25 votes,Mrs Martina Kure – 14 votes, Withdrew Alh. Musa Garba Musa .Rukuba:Alh. Alhassan Ayiki – 47 votes,Alh. Yusuf Umar – 43 votes Alh. Samaila Ahalu Rukuba – 27 votes Hon Peter Akuja – 20 votes,Ms Mariam – 2 votes Hon Abbe Aku (serving commissioner withdrew)
However, some of the aspirants who were defeated at the local poll are now pushing to create confusion and rancor within the peaceful Congress in APC.
