Don’t smuggle Pantami into guber primaries, aspirants tell Gombe PDP

Four gubernatorial aspirants under the People’s Democratic Party in Gombe State have condemned the alleged attempt to smuggle Prof. Isa Pantami into the PDP to participate in the party’s primaries.

The aspirants include Alhaji Abdulkadir Hamma Saleh, ⁠Hon. Khamisu Ahmed Mailantarki, Hon. Usman Aliyu Garry and Mrs ⁠Monica Kaltho.

They made this call in a communiqué issued in Gombe on Sunday after an emergency meeting.

The aspirants stated that there were rumours that Pantami who participated in the just concluded governorship primaries of the All Progressives Congress (APC) was planning to defect to the PDP.

They said that the aim of his defection was to contest the party’s governorship primaries which according to them was unacceptable and unlawful.

They condemned the act stating that by law and democratic principles, Pantami was ineligible to participate, having contested in the APC guber primaries held on Thursday.

“The law does not permit a candidate to defect from one political party to another and subsequently contest the same election process after votes have been cast in his favour in another party’s primaries.

“While we welcome every individual into the PDP, we strongly object to any attempt to involve such a person in the ongoing PDP gubernatorial primaries which have gotten to an advanced level,” he said.

They called on the leadership of the PDP to desist from promoting any action that would undermine the rule of law or expose the party to litigation.

The aspirants further urged the leadership of the party to pick a candidate from amongst them to fly the party’s flag in the forthcoming election.