Gov Sule Picked Wadada Without Due Process — Tanko Al-Makura

Former Governor of Nasarawa State, Senator Tanko Al-Makura, insisted on Wednesday that Governor Abdullahi Sule did not follow due process in endorsing Senator Aliyu Wadada as the candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC).

Al-Makura, who appeared as a guest on Politics Today, a politics and current affairs programme on Channels TV, said it was unfair of the governor to present Wadada to President Bola Tinubu as the preferred candidate.

Insisting that he and other stakeholders were not consulted before Wadada’s endorsement, the former governor said it was unfair to the president that Wadada was taken to him without proper consultation. He also noted that it was unfair to the people of Nasarawa State.

He stressed that the move did not follow due process, adding that before a candidate emerges, individuals who hope to secure the party’s ticket must first purchase party forms, thereby becoming aspirants who will then contest in the primaries.

Al-Makura noted that he had no objection to the governor having a preferred candidate, nor did he object to Wadada as a person.

However, he said the governor should have kept his preference to himself and allowed due process and proper consultation to take place.

He said it is in the interest of everyone who supports the APC to ensure that things are done according to laid-down procedures.

He warned that doing otherwise might force people to act differently.

He added that all actions should be taken with due consideration for the election.

According to him, every governor has the right to have a successor—someone he trusts and has confidence in to deliver and even surpass his achievements.

The former governor, who admitted that he picked the incumbent, Sule, as his preferred candidate, added that he did not fast-track the process.

He explained that upon identifying Sule as his preferred candidate, he spent six months consulting leaders in the state, including traditional rulers.

He also stated that he settled for Sule because his senatorial zone, the North, had not produced a governor and might not have been able to do so without deliberate support.