By Promise Eze
A few days before the 2023 governorship election, the Labour Party (LP) candidate in Adamawa State, Umar Mustapha, announced his withdrawal from the race and endorsed his counterpart from the All Progressives Congress (APC), Senator Aishatu Binani.
On Sunday evening, the LP candidate, known as Otumba, confirmed his alliance with Binani while addressing a press in Yola, the state capital.
He said, “I am confident that Binani will provide a people-centered leadership that will prioritise human capital and resource development that will prosper Adamawa State.
“That is why I am calling on all my supporters to come out on Saturday, March 11, and vote for Distinguished Senator Aishatu Ahmed Binani as Governor of Adamawa State.”
He added that he was putting all the structures of his Otumba Campaign Organisation at Binani’s disposal.
He had for long not been working with his Labour Party, and has recently been accusing the state leadership of the party of working with the state chapter of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) for the success of Governor Ahmadu Fintiri in the scheduled March 11 election.
Umar Mustapha had just before the Presidential election of last Saturday, made open endorsement of the APC candidate, Asiwaju Ahmed Tinubu, now president-elect, confessing that he was not having the sort of relationship with Labour Party’s Peter Obi to promote his candidacy.
Umar Mustapha did not clarify at the Sunday briefing if he had in effect left the Labour Party; as he tactically left that aspect out of the answers he provided to questions that journalists put to him.
Senator Aishatu Binani who attended the brief ceremony at which Umar Mustapha announced her endorsement, said it was a welcome development and that it would boost her chances at the election of coming Saturday.
“This endorsement of Otumba will in itself alone send jitters into many circles,” Binani said.
