Gov. Sule reaffirms commitment to direct primary, touts Nasarawa’s economic gains

Governor Abdullahi Sule of Nasarawa State, has reiterated that the All Progressives Congress in the state will conduct a direct primary election to determine its governorship candidate ahead of the 2027 general election.

This is just as Governor Sule has dismissed suggestions that his endorsement of Senator Ahmed Aliyu Wadada as his preferred successor amounts to an imposition or a threat to internal party democracy.

The Governor, who spoke as a guest on Channels Television in a programme monitored in Lafia on Sunday, said the decision to hold a direct primary was reached after consultations with major stakeholders, including all the governorship aspirants, who were invited to a meeting and given the opportunity to select a consensus candidate from among themselves.

“We are going to have a direct primary as free and fair as it can be. This is what we agreed with the major stakeholders, including all the aspirants seated. We all agreed that there is going to be a direct primary,” he stated.

He explained that he invited the eight governorship aspirants from Nasarawa West, the zone he believes should produce the next governor based on the state’s power rotation arrangement, and asked them to agree among themselves on a single candidate.

He added that, when they were unable to reach agreement, they returned to him and collectively asked him to make the choice, pledging in writing to support whoever he selected.

“They told me they were not able to select one of us. They said: we believe in your sincerity, we believe in your leadership, therefore you select anyone of us and all of us will rally around that person. All eight of them agreed,” he recounted.

Following that process, he said, he consulted further and settled on Senator Wadada, noting that several of the aspirants had since stepped down publicly and pledged their support, while others from outside the western zone had also indicated their backing for the choice.

On why he settled on Wadada specifically, Governor Sule cited a long personal and professional relationship dating back to 2003 when both men were involved in Nigeria’s capital market.

He also pointed to Wadada’s loyalty to the APC, noting that even after losing out in the 2023 senatorial primary under circumstances he considered unfair, Wadada left the party temporarily, won a Senate seat under the Social Democratic Party, and still openly campaigned for Governor Sule’s re-election as governor during the same election cycle.

“Nearly everywhere he won, I also won. He campaigned for me. That speaks to his character,” he added.

Governor Sule dismissed allegations that he was engaged in anti-party activity or plotting against President Bola Ahmed Tinubu ahead of 2027, describing such claims as baseless.

He said he had no reason whatsoever to work against the president, adding that Tinubu’s economic reforms had been beneficial to Nasarawa State and that he wanted the president to win the 2027 presidential election more than at any other time.

On the economy, Governor Sule said Nasarawa State had attracted over 2.3 billion dollars in investments since 2022, pointing to two lithium processing plants in Nasarawa Local Government Area as concrete evidence.

One of the plants, he said, was built at a cost of approximately 200 million dollars, while a second, described as the largest of its kind in Africa with a capacity of 12,000 metric tons per day, was built at close to 500 million dollars.

He acknowledged that poverty levels in the state remain high but argued that the trajectory was clearly improving.

When his administration came to power, he said, approximately 77 percent of the state’s population were classified as poor. That figure, he noted, had since dropped to around 50 percent, driven by the employment, skills acquisition and infrastructure that new investments were bringing into communities.

The governor also announced that the upcoming Nasarawa Investment Summit, themed Bold Transitions, would be entirely funded by investors with no contribution from the state government.

He said the summit would feature a deal room for concrete investment agreements and would culminate in what he called a Lafia Declaration, to which leaders of all political parties would be invited so that investors could be confident that development commitments would be honoured regardless of which party wins the 2027 governorship election.

On his own political future, Governor Sule confirmed that a form had been obtained on his behalf for the Nasarawa North Senatorial seat, saying the matter would proceed as events unfold.