The Kano state Governor Dr Abdullahi Umar Ganduje has challenged the former governor Senator Rabi’u Musa Kwankwaso to launch his presidential campaign for the forthcoming general election in the state, if he is sure of his popularity.
“Kano is not and will never be ready to welcome Kwankwaso. Kano people have every constitutional right to make their democratic choices,” Ganduje said in Kano on Sunday.
“And as such, we have all the rights to reject him and we have already rejected him. We never considered him from day one as a presidential material. We shall continue to maintain our position about him. We know nobody but President Muhammadu Buhari,
“We, the great people of Kano, as he is aware will use every democratic way possible to reject him (Kwankwaso) and show him an exit from political participation, even before the general election comes our way.”
Ganduje spoke at an event of Money Transfer to empower women held at government house, kano, where 6,600 women drawn from the 44 local governments of the state were given the sum of N15,000 each to boost their business.
“We in Kano, witnessed the demise of distinguished personalities, of which he chose not to come and we had fire outbreaks in some of our markets and this man (KwanKwanso), did not care to come and sympathize with the victims.”
When some of the popular markets in Kano experienced fire disaster Ganduje said, “We raised a special committee that was given the responsibility of finding the remote causes of such disaster and were given the mandate to collect contributions so as to alleviate some of the sufferings of the victims.”
“We included somebody as a member of the committee, the person was, a staunch follower of Kwankwaso. But this man didn’t allow that him to participate in all the meetings of the committee. Neither did he send a dime as his contribution.”
He asked rhetorically, “Kano people, I am asking you, does this man really have any concern for you and your families? All we are saying is, in whose interest is he doing all these things? This man doesn’t have, even an iota of feeling about Kano people, at all.”
“Because he knows that he is not welcomed in Kano and he will never be welcomed, that was why he chooses to stay away from our dear state and go somewhere, other places, not Kano, and be launching his unorganised and unpopular campaign,” Ganduje stated.
“Kano is solely for Buhari come 2019, not any other person. That is why we said we are waiting for him to come to Kano and launch his campaign. We shall use all democratically accepted ways and say No!”
On the empowerment programme Ganduje said, “We are doing this to help in uplifting your living standard. To also make you self-reliant. It is known to all of you that we have greater concern for you and your families.”
“This we are doing in compliance with President Muhammadu Buhari’s spirit of human development. We believe that, any step taken by our dear President, deserves to be followed at any given time,” he said.