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Obasanjo's party picks candidate
17/12/2006 12:25 - (SA)
Abuja - Nigeria's ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) on Sunday chose Umaru Yar'Adua, governor of the northern Katsina State, as its candidate for the April 2007 presidential election.
It was reported that Yar'Adua, 55, won hands down, garnering 3 024 votes out of a total of 4 007 valid votes cast.
Rochas Okorocha, a former special advisor to President Olusegun Obasanjo and an ethnic Igbo from the East of the country, came second with just 372 votes and Aliyu Muhammed Gusau, a retired general who spent his career in intelligence, came third with 271 votes. Ninety-four votes were disqualified.
Yar'Adua's victory had been widely expected after the governors of PDP-controlled states on Friday chose him as their "consensus candidate" and urged all party delegates to vote for him on the grounds that he "presented the best credentials" and was "generally acceptable across the country".
Honesty, integrity, humility
Nigerians would go to the polls in April to choose a successor to Obasanjo, whose second four-year term was coming to an end and who was constitutionally barred from standing again.
This quiet and unassuming father of six was best known as the younger brother of the late prominent politician and strategist, retired general Shehu Musa Yar'Adua.
Photos showed a smooth-skinned, sober but friendly-looking man in unostentatious traditional Muslim garb.
His campaign adverts vaunted his "honesty, integrity, humility and courage" and credit him with having, "in seven and a half years moved Katsina State's treasury from debt to reserves of 6.5 billion naira".
Number of contestants whittled down
No fewer than some 30 party members had wanted to contest in the PDP primaries. The number of contestants was whittled down to about 20 by a screening committee and another handful were then persuaded to withdraw in favour of Yar'Adua, leaving 12 contestants in all in the race on Saturday.
Heavyweights who dropped out included Donald Duke, the governor of the southern Cross River State and Peter Odili, governor of another southern state, oil-rich Rivers.
The PDP, which won national elections in 1999 after the military ceded power to civilians, controlled 28 of Nigeria's 36 states and has a majority in the national parliament.
The party was again victorious in 2003 and had promised to win again next year.
Given that the ruling PDP remained powerful, despite internal feuding, observers said that the candidate fielded by this party stood a good chance of winning the presidential election.
- AFP
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