Khalil emerges Katsina NNPP guber candidate

Muhammad Khalil has emerged the governorship candidate of the New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP) in Katsina State.

The primary, which held at the NYSC Orientation Camp, Katsina, on Monday night, saw the engineer garner 950 votes to defeat his only rival, Ibrahim Talba, who polled 29.

Announcing the result, chairman of the electoral committee, Dr. Yusuf Ibrahim, said 1,154 delegates from the 34 local councils of the state participated in the primary, but 981 voted. Two votes were invalid.

Before Khalil’s rival, Talba had walked out of the exercise, citing alleged irregularities.

Talba’s campaign director, Dr. Sani Kankia, told newsmen that the party gave them a compromised list of delegates different from the original one.

He alleged that an executive member of the party was doling out money from the other aspirant to delegates before voting commenced.

The development, he added, forced him to boycott the exercise, and that he had written a protest letter to both the national and state chapter of the party.