The governorship candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Benue State, Chief Michael Kaase Aondoakaa, SAN, has emerged winner of the first online voting exercise conducted by Nigerian Concord Newspaper.

The poll is the first in a series of ten online voting exercises scheduled by the publication.

Other candidates featured in the ballot include Governor Hyacinth Alia of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Dr. Matthias Byuan of the Labour Party (LP), Chief Sebastine Hon of the Social Democratic Party (SDP), Hon. Herman Hembe of the African Democratic Congress (ADC), and Professor Terhemba Shija of the National Democratic Congress.

The voting exercise, which ran from Thursday through Friday morning, was monitored by the newspaper’s editorial team in Lagos State.

A total of 369 participants took part in the poll. However, 28 votes were invalidated due to instances of multiple voting, leaving 341 valid votes.

Of the valid votes cast, Aondoakaa polled 196 votes to defeat his closest rival, Governor Hyacinth Alia, who scored 84 votes. Hon. Herman Hembe secured 29 votes, while Chief Sebastine Hon, Dr. Byuan, and Professor Shija received 14, 10, and 8 votes respectively.

Following the collation of results, the chairman of the Nigerian Concord Newspaper Online Voting Monitoring Team, Prince Olukanye Eleko, declared Aondoakaa the winner, having secured the highest number of valid votes.

The newspaper announced that the next online poll among the six governorship candidates will hold on the 15th of this month.

By Achadu Gabriel, Kaduna

A political leader in Kajuru and Chikun Local Government Areas of Kaduna State, Hon. Isah Danssaallah, has announced that he is considering leaving the African Democratic Congress (ADC) for the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), citing concerns about the state of opposition politics ahead of the 2027 general elections.

In a statement titled Declaration of Intent to Realign Politically, Danssaallah said the move followed consultations with supporters, political associates, and stakeholders across the two local government areas.He expressed concerns about what he described as fragmentation within opposition parties, arguing that internal divisions could weaken their ability to provide an effective alternative to the ruling party.

Speaking on his experience in the ADC, Danssaallah alleged that the party had been affected by internal disagreements, parallel structures, and leadership challenges. He said these issues had raised concerns about transparency and party cohesion.The politician, however, praised the PDP’s organizational structure, describing it as a leading opposition platform with established national and grassroots networks.

According to him, the proposed realignment is not driven by personal ambition but by a commitment to democratic governance, effective opposition politics, and broader political participation.Danssaallah said consultations on the proposed move are ongoing and that a final decision will be announced at a later date.

The development adds to ongoing political discussions in Kaduna State ahead of the 2027 elections, particularly in Kajuru and Chikun, two local government areas regarded as politically significant. Officials of both the ADC and PDP in Kaduna State had not publicly responded to the declaration as of press time.

By: Aondoakaa Tersugh Daniel | 04/06/2026

Benue State has a political record that deserves more honest attention than it usually receives. Three gubernatorial elections stand out, not because they were routine contests, but because they were fought at moments when the stakes went far beyond who would occupy the Government House in Makurdi. In 2003, the PDP faced down a strong ANPP challenge and won. In 2011, the ACN came with considerable momentum and the PDP held. In 2019, in what remains perhaps the most ideologically charged election the state had seen in years, the PDP defeated the APC under circumstances where the outcome carried a meaning that ordinary ballot arithmetic alone could not capture.

What connects those three victories is not campaign funding or party structure, at least not primarily. What connects them is something the Benue electorate appeared to understand at a gut level at each of those moments: the PDP candidate was, whether perfectly or imperfectly, standing between the state and forces that had no interest in Benue’s survival as a territorial and human reality. Voters did not simply choose a party. They chose a shield. That is a distinction worth sitting with.

The configuration going into 2027 is not new. It is, to a degree that should unsettle anyone paying attention, a near replication of the exact conditions that produced those three victories. And this is where the commentary has to be direct.

The allegation that Governor Hyacinth Iormen Alia received substantial Fulani sponsorship ahead of the 2023 election, on an informal understanding that their settlement on Benue land would be facilitated, remains unproven. No court has established it, and fairness requires that distinction to be stated plainly. But what requires no court is what has been happening in Benue communities under this administration.

Under former Governor Samuel Ortom, the herdsmen attacks were vicious and frequent, but they followed a pattern of strike and retreat. The attackers came, killed, and left. There was no lingering. Under Alia, something in the character of these attacks has changed in a way that is difficult to explain away. Communities are not merely raided anymore. They are emptied. People are not just killed. They are displaced, and then the land they fled is occupied. The attackers are staying. They are settling. And the man whose constitutional duty it is to stop all of this has stood before cameras and described what is happening as mere skirmishes, denying with apparent comfort that genocide is taking place inside his own state. That is not a political disagreement. That is a moral catastrophe delivered in a press statement.

That posture alone recreates the precise condition that pushed Benue voters toward the PDP in every previous difficult election: a leading candidate whose relationship with the enemies of Benue territory was, at the very best, one of suspicious ease.

Chief Michael Kaase Aondoakaa SAN enters this race carrying two arguments simultaneously, and both of them are strong. The first is the territorial argument just described. The second is less dramatic but equally felt by ordinary people: the Benue civil service is in a state of near collapse. The bureaucracy is paralysed and the basic machinery of governance is grinding rather than running. This political argument that does not need embellishment.

The arithmetic of Benue political history points in one direction. Every time the conditions aligned to make the PDP the obvious defender of Benue interests against external threat or internal abandonment, the PDP won. The conditions in 2027 are not merely similar to those moments. They are, in critical respects, starker. The administrative failure is not a campaign claim. It is four years of lived reality. The state’s indifference to mass killings and occupation is not a rumour. It is documented in satellite images, funeral photographs, and the testimonies of the displaced.

The PDP does not need to invent a crisis to campaign on. The crisis is already governing the state. And if the Benue pattern holds, and this particular pattern has not broken once in the three elections that mattered most, then 2027 may not be the party’s most gruelling fight. It may, quietly and almost without precedent, be its most straightforward one.