An APC governorship aspirant in Zamfara in the 2019 governorship election, Sagir Hamida, was killed by armed men on Sunday evening, a family source has confirmed. 

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) gathered from the deceased’s elder brother, Kabiru Hamida, that Sagir was killed near Abuja while he was returning from the weekend.

Mr Kabiru who said the family members were still gathering details of what happened from the authorities and possible eyewitnesses explained that details could only be made available by Monday. 

NAN reports that Mr Hamida, an Abuja-based businessman and former director in the federal civil service, aspired for the governorship of Zamfara under the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in 2011 but lost at the party’s primary election. 

He later defected to the APC and vied for the governorship position in 2019 but was allegedly short-changed by the former governor Abdulaziz Yari-led APC in the state from where he joined seven other aspirants to form the G-8 which protested and fought the Yari group up to the Supreme Court.

Mr Hamida who returned to the Yari faction of the APC in the state with the defection of the state governor, Bello Matawalle, from the PDP to the APC to fight Matawalle’s leadership of the party in the state, a position he held till he was killed. 

Also speaking over the development, Mr Matawalle’s spokesman Yusuf Idris told NAN that the governor received the information with shock. 

“I can tell you, my principal is still in shock since the news was broken to him that one of the illustrious sons of the state was killed, we shall furnish you on this tomorrow when we get more details because right now, the governor is in Abuja attending a crucial meeting,” Mr Idris said