Bala Mohammed speaks on party’s defeat in Bauchi bye-election

The Bauchi State Governor, Bala Mohammed, has called on supporters of his party, Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), to accept the outcome of Saturday’s Assembly bye-election in Dass local government as the will of God.

Mr Mohammed made this call in a statement issued by his Senior Special Assistant on Media, Muktar Gidado, on Sunday.

The governing PDP in Bauchi lost a keenly contested assembly bye-election to the main opposition party in the state, APC.

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) had last night announced that the candidate of the APC, Bala Lukshi, polled a total of 12,299 votes to defeat PDP’s Lawal Wandi who got 11,062 votes.

Leading with a margin of 1,237 votes, the Returning Officer declared APC’s Bala Lukshi the winner “having scored the highest votes.”

Reacting to the outcome of the election in a statement issued by his spokesperson, Muktar Gidado, Governor Mohammed said rather than grieve over the loss, his party supporters should take a lesson from the defeat.

The governor described the loss as a will of God and encouraged party faithful “not to be divided by the temporary setback.”

“All praise and adoration belong to Allah. The loss of our party is a lesson for all of us, but no one is to be blame.”

“Remember we lost 21 House of Assembly seats and 3 Senate seats in 2019 but Allah gave us victory in the gubernatorial election. Let us not play to the gallery by indulging in the blame game, internal rancour, accusations and mistrust, the governor said.”

Mr Mohammed, therefore, thanked “all the dogged PDP Members for their support and contributions towards ensuring the success of his administration.”