The All Progressives Congress (APC) has disqualified 12 gubernatorial aspirants in Kogi State, while the state Governor Yahaya Bello, a member of the House of Representatives Hassan Bello, Ekele Aisha Blessing and Mr. Abubakar Bashir have all been cleared to contest the forthcoming primary election scheduled to hold on August 29, 2019.

The committee, which has Senator Hope Uzodimma as its Chairman, Dr. Adamu Abba as the Secretary, Senator Abdulahi Gumel, Hon. Bernard Mikko and Hon. Stella Okotete as members, was inaugurated by the National Chairman of the party, Adams Oshiomole, last week Wednesday.

The committee, in a report submitted to the chairman of the party, a copy of which was made available to THISDAY, revealed that the committee arrived Lokoja, the Kogi State capital, approximately 12:45pm and proceeded to the party secretariat for the screening exercise.

The report added that before the committee commenced the screening of the 16 gubernatorial aspirants, its chairman briefed the aspirants of the modalities of the screening.

However, the party after raking in the sum of N360 million, gave clean slate to only four aspirants. The party had pegged the sale of each gubernatorial form at N22.5 million.

The result of the screening as submitted by the committee, indicated that the incumbent governor, Bello, who was number one on the list, was cleared because of his ‘strong financial contribution to the party’ and after all his original and supporting documents were examined.

Abdulahi, who was number 16 on the list, was cleared because he was a committed member of the party, and after he presented his original secondary school certificate, while Blessing was cleared because she is a ‘team player’ and Bashir was cleared because he supports a ‘consensus candidate’.

Aspirants that were disqualified included Yahaya Audu, Mona Audu, Mohammed Audu, Danlami Mohammed, Babatunde Irukera, Rukkaya Ibrahim, Sani Lulu Abdulahi, Gen. Patrick Akpa(rtd), Prof. Mohammed Onaili, Yakubu Mohammed, while Rear Admiral Usman Jibril (rtd) was disqualified due to discrepancy in his date of birth. One read 16/09/1959 while the one on his passport was 16/09/1960, which the report indicated that the aspirant admitted and apologised.

“The committee received the separate sets of petitions against some of the aspirants and they are hereby attached. The screening was concluded 9:30p.m,” the report said. (THISDAY)

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