The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) Tuesday presented Certificate of Return (CoR) to Senators-elect in Abuja.
Of the 101 Senators-elect who were around to collect the CoR, only three were females, namely; Rivers Deputy Governor Ipalibo Banigo of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), former Lagos Deputy Governor Idiat Adebule of the All Progressives Congress (APC) and wife of former Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Ireti Kingibe of the Labour Party (LP).
Others are Abdulaziz Yari (Zamara), Adams Oshiomhole (Edo), Godswill Akpabio (Akwa Ibom), Dave Umahi (Ebonyi), Danjuma Goje (Gombe), Adamu Aliero (Kebbi), Gbenga Daniel (Ogun), Ibrahim Gaidam (Yobe), Ibrahim Hassan Dankwambo (Gombe), Seriake Dickson (Bayelsa), Orji Uzor Kalu (Abia) and Yemi Adaramodu (Ekiti).
Also on hand to receive the CoR were Solomon Adeola Olamilekan, former APC national publicity scribe, Osita Izunaso (Imo), Salihu Mustapha (Kwara), Dalington Nwkocha (Abia), Mohammed Tahir Monguno (Borno), Nasir Zango-Daura (Katsina) and Muntar Dandutse (Katsina).
Shekarau
Blueprint reports that Senator-elect for Kano Central Ibrahim Shekarau, a card-carrying member of the PDP, was conspicuously absent at the event to pick his CoR having been elected on another party platform.
The former Kano state governor was declared winner of the Kano Central on the platform of the New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP), even after he had resigned his membership of the party.
Shekarau, who had a face-off with the NNPP leader, Senator Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso had said: “All the agreements we had with him were betrayed by Kwankwaso and his boys and they did not accommodate one single person from my camp.
“We reached an agreement to accommodate my supporters into various elective positions in the party, but until now, the committee set up could not accommodate one single person, apart from the senatorial slot given to me.
“I will never be a party to injustice. My integrity is utmost and not any political position that will make me compromise it and that of my people. Nobody will use position or money against my integrity.
“I am a man of honour and integrity but his governorship candidate (Abba Kabir Yusuf), who was given the responsibility to look at areas to accommodate my people into various elective positions never for one single day did so or even called for meeting talk less of accepting my supporters to contest.
“Nobody will use money to change my conscience. I was a governor for eight years in Kano and people believed in my integrity. I am still living in a rented house in Abuja and never allocated a single plot of land to myself, when I served as governor in Kano and I challenge anyone, who knows my plot of land to expose it.”
….Doguwa missing from Reps-elects’ list
In a related development, the name of the Majority Leader of the House of Representatives, Ado Doguwa, was missing from the list of elected House of Representatives members.
On the election result sighted Tuesday by Blueprint, INEC remarked “declaration made under duress” against the name of the House Leader.
The electoral body had declared Doguwa, an APC candidate winner of the Doguwa/Tudunwada Federal Constituency, having polled 39,732 votes to defeat his closest rival from the NNPP, Yushau Salisu Abdullahi, who had 34,798 votes.
Doguwa, it would be recalled, was arrested at the Aminu Kano International Airport, while on his way to Saudi Arabia on a Lesser Hajj, in connection with alleged murder and arson.
He was sent to prison by a magistrates but granted a N500million bail Monday by a Federal High Court in Kano.