The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) candidate in the yet to be scheduled bye election to fill the vacant seat of Late Hon. Buba Jibril, has been declared missing.
Engr Bashiru Abubakar Gegu, according to Youths Advocates For Change Initiative (YACI), a political group in a statement it issued in Lokoja, said the party’s candidate was last seen in Lokoja, on the day he emerged as the party’s flagbearer. The group lamented that ever since then his whereabouts has remained largely unknown.
In a statement signed by Usman Nalolo, the youths group called on the PDP to make a quick replacement for Engr Bashiru, as they say every indication points to the fact that he lacks the pedigree and resilience to withstand the challenges the office of a member House of Representatives would present.
The group lamented that the candidate withdrew into his shell, abandoning the people of Lokoja to their fate, an action the youths described as amounting to throwing in the towel even before the referee’s whistle signalling the commencement of the bye election to.
While noting that the action of the PDP candidate may have serious consequences for the party in an election the youths disclosed would ordinarily have won with a landslide, urged the state, and party executives at the Lokoja/Kogi Federal Constituency to call the candidate to order, to make himself available and reach out to the electorates.
The Youths lamented what they termed as playing on their sensibilities by deliberately avoiding them, playing hide and seek, in their inability to reach the candidate on his two phone numbers in the last two months, as he has refused to pick their calls, signals a bad omen for them if eventually the candidate is elected and moves to Abuja.
The Youth Group therefore declare the PDP candidate a missing person pending when he makes himself available, begin intensive campaigns, tender an unreserved and genuine apology, as only then would they have a change of mind.
They Youths say they are looking for other optional candidate to rally their support for, pointing out that with the bar raised by the former occupant of the seat, it behoves on them to search rightly for a worthy representative, who will be accessible and available.
