Plateau Speaker, Majority Leader lose seats
Happiness Akawu, a female Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) candidate for the Plateau State House of Assembly, has caused a major upset after defeating Speaker of the Plateau State House of Assembly,Yakubu Sanda in Saturday’s election in the Pengana Constituency of the Bassa Local Government Area.
Results announced on Saturday night by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), showed that Akawu polled 9,926 votes to defeat Sanda of the All Progressives Congress, who polled 7,936 votes.
Also, the candidate of the Peoples Redemption Party (PRP), Faisal Haruna Maitala, polled 6,721 votes to place third.
Daily Report Nigeria recalls that Sanda was controversially installed speaker by six members out of the 24 assembly members after erstwhile Speaker, Nuhu Ayuba Abok was impeached by members said to be loyal to Governor Simon Lalong.
The instalment of Sanda was seen as an illegality by many in the state who said Abok was removed to pave the way for the House to be an appendage of the Executive.
Meanwhile, another top ranking member of the House, Daniel Naanlong, who is the Majority leader, also lost his Mikang State Constituency seat to Mathew Sule of PDP.
According to the results announced by the electoral umpire, Sule scored 12,880 to defeat Naanlong, who was contesting for a third term on the APC platform, and polled 9,848 votes.
