Senate: Retired Police commissioner, Dimka, gets APC ticket for Dariye’s seat

From Ron Jacob, Jos.
Mr Hezekiah Dimka, a retired Commissioner of Police, on Thursday clinhed APC ticket to replace Senator Joshua Dariye for the Plateau Central senatorial district seat.
In a keenly contested primary election held at the Youth Centre, Pankshin, Dimka pulled 1, 306 out of 1900 votes to beat other contestants including Diket Plang, Sam Piwuna and Manji Gontori, who got 450, 46 and 68 votes respectively.
Our correspondent reports that Reps Solomon Maren and Rep Timothy Golu won the PDP Primary elections in their respective constituencies separately held in Mangu and Pankshin on Wednesday through Thursday morning.
Rep Maren pulled 98 votes out of 295 votes to retain his seat by beating Senator Ibrahim Mantu’s son, Umar, who scored 94 votes and two others, Jelka Danlami (92) and Nanbam Jacob-Lot (6) to win the Mangu/Bokkos Federal Constituency ticket for PDP.
Rep Golu had also garnered 278 votes against Danjuma Usman and Suleiman Hanssi’s 51 and 27 votes respectively to clinched the ticket of Pankshin, Kanke and Kanam Federal Constituency PDP ticket.
The APC Senate Primary election which was held peacefully was chaired Mr Demua Ledee-Demua from Rivers state, who declared Dimka winner of the primary and replacement for Dariye, who is in jail.
He described the primaries as “very transparent, free and credible.’’
He charged those who lost to team up with Dimka and fight other opponents come 2019 elections to retain the Senate seat for Plateau Central.