A dispute over the Peoples Democratic Party’s 2027 Gombe governorship ticket has deepened, with Premium Times reporting that the party expelled two aspirants after committee findings of misconduct.
The Nov. 2 report named the aspirants as Khamisu Ahmed Mailantarki and Usman Aliyu Garry. It said national publicity secretary Jungudo Mohammed announced the decision in a statement, which attributed it to findings by the party’s disciplinary committee.
According to Premium Times, the committee found that the men had engaged in anti-party activity and gross misconduct, and in conduct it said could bring the party into disrepute. The report said the statement cited Sections 57, 58(1) and 59 of the PDP Constitution, as amended in 2017, and referred to fair-hearing provisions in the party constitution and Section 36 of Nigeria’s Constitution. It said the statement declared that Mailantarki and Garry would cease to be party members under Section 59(1)(j).
The dispute followed a court challenge to former Minister of Communications and Digital Economy Isa Ali Pantami’s emergence as the PDP’s Gombe candidate. Channels Television reported that on Sept. 24, the Federal High Court in Gombe nullified the process that produced Pantami as the party’s candidate and ordered a fresh primary within 30 days. The court left Pantami’s party membership unchanged, according to Channels Television.
Channels Television reported that the rerun took place Sept. 29, with committee chairman Johnbull Shekarau declaring Pantami the winner. The court-ordered vote was for the 2027 governorship election.
A Gombe PDP chapter statement, reproduced by TheCable and also reported by PRNigeria, said the chapter suspended Mailantarki and Garry for one month on Sept. 30 and referred their cases to the disciplinary committee.
