Ugar Ukandi Odey, Jos
The Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, Elders in Mangu Local Government Area of Plateau State have conducted a shadow primary election to reduce the number of aspirants from the area to at most three persons from a crowd of thirteen.
Sources in Central Plateau said this became necessary as the Mwaghavul tribe of Mangu is working out a strategy to outwit the Ngas stock of Pankshin and Kanke LGAs as the May 2021, 2022 Gubernatorial primary promises to be an ethnic war between the two majority tribes of Plateau Central as it takes its turn in the zoning arrangement.
Popularly referred to as the the intellectual capital of Plateau, Mangu also occupies a unique place in the State’s political economy because of its economic potentials and decisive and influential voter strength of over 150, 000.
According to Elders Gabriel Din and David Dandaura Daspan, the shadow primary election became necessary as part of its considered strategy to avoid splitting its bloc vote during the PDP gubernatorial Congress, and become vulnerable to their opponent, and eventually suffer defeat.
Thus, to hold the shadow primary election, delegates were drawn from all the 15 Federal Wards in the Local Government Area, making 110 delegates at polling time.
Although some of the aspirants were scared and reportedly opted out the exercise, 5 of the aspirants accepted the idea, made themselves available and participated in entire process.
At the end of polling, Barrister Caleb Mutfwang polled 33 votes to defeat Alex Ladan who was runner-up with 23 votes, to place Jerry Gutop and Satau Jatau who tallied with 22 votes each, with Honorable Jonathan Aminu finishing fairly with 10 votes.
All the participants accepted the outcome of the poll, and promised to work in the greater interest of Mangu Local Government Area and the PDP by supporting Barrister Caleb Mutfwang.
Similarly, to ensure that a Mangu indigene and aspirant picks the party gubernatorial ticket ultimately, the Mangu PDP Elders have called on all, including others who avoided the ballot, to work for the greater good of the Mangu people and the party by collapsing their support base into Mutfwang’s campaign arsenal.
