According to Daily Trust, the State Publicity Secretary of the PDP, Yayanuwa Zainabari disclosed this on Tuesday.

Former Secretary to Bauchi State Government (SSG), Ibrahim Kashim, had clinched the ticket of the party in the primary conducted last week.

The Returning Officer for the election, Hassan Ahmed Grema, had declared Kashim, the sole aspirant, as the winner, saying he had a total of 655 votes out of the 656 votes available as one was invalid.

Shortly after the declaration, Kashim said he had accepted the mandate given to him by the delegates.

“The contest has just begun for 2023. The PDP is ready to beat every other opposition,” he had said.

However, there were reports of disagreement between the governorship candidate and Governor Bala Mohammed after the primary.

According to the reports, Kashim refused to hand over the ticket to the governor who lost the PDP presidential ticket to former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar.

Mohammed, a first-term governor, had just 20 votes in the presidential primary.

But PDP spokesman in Bauchi said a fresh exercise would be conducted because Kashim said he no longer had an interest in the election.

He said, “Former Secretary to the Government of Bauchi State, Barrister Ibrahim Muhammad Kashim, has withdrawn his candidature and submitted his candidature since he stepped down on his own.
“The party is left with no option but to get his replacement through fresh Primary election.”

Yayanuwa said the party is following the process as enshrined in the law of the party and the electoral law.

“We are following the process and we will conduct a fresh governorship primary election.

“Governor Bala contested for the presidential ticket based on the calls from well-meaning Nigerians, he answered their calls and now the people of Bauchi want him to contest for the second term. It is also left for the people of the state to decide, and whatever the people decide will be done. The governor is somebody who answers the calls of his people,” he said.