Eight House of Assembly candidates of the Labour Party (LP) in Adamawa State formally stepped down for their counterparts in the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).
The development, announced on Tuesday, came about 10 days after the LP governorship candidate in the state, Umar Mustapha, stepped down his ambition for his All Progressives Congress (APC) counterpart, Aishatu Binani, and less than a week after six governorship candidates of other parties endorsed Ahmadu Fintiri of PDP.
Addressing newsmen at a conference in Yola on Tuesday regarding their decision, the leader of the LP House of Assembly candidates, Mr Dinge Elon said their decision was to avoid dividing votes which may favour APC at the coming House of Assembly election as it happened in the February 25 presidential and National Assembly elections.
Elon said their other colleagues who refused to step down have promised to work for the re-election of Governor Ahmadu Umaru Fintiri who is the PDP candidate in the March 18 governorship election.
Aside from Elon (Guyuk state constituency), the other LP House of Assembly candidates who stepped down include Aliyu Bakari (Toungo constituency), Mohammed Aliyu (Fufore/Gurin), Abubakar Mohammed (Shelleng), Auwal Chiroma (Yola South), Yakubu Mai Ganga (Verre), Thomson Sale (Leko Koma) and Kabiru Aliyu (Ganye).
The Adamawa State House of Assembly comprises 25 seats, of which the PDP currently has 14 members while APC has eight, with three seats declared vacant after their occupants defected to parties different from those under which they were elected.