Ahead of the 2023 governorship race in Kaduna state, a former governor, Mukhtar Ramalan Yero has said that he will contest and return to the Sir Kashim Ibrahim House Kaduna because of the alleged ugly experience Kaduna people went through.
Yero said by now, the people of Kaduna State have seen the difference between the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) and the ruling All Progressive Congress (APC).
“It is left for the people to tell whether PDP was better after 16 years in office or APC’s eight years in office is better,” he said.
Yero who was the state governor in 2015 when he lost the governorship race to Nasir El-Rufai, said in an interview, that he would run again for the governorship in 2023.
According to him,” the people of Kaduna State have tested PDP in the last 16 years and now you have tested APC in eight years. Now you have seen the difference. PDP was there in 16 years, APC is just eight years and you have now seen the kind of situation that you are in.”
“You should compare and see whether during PDP you are far better off or you are hardly better off. If you are better off during PDP, then you should know that the PDP is the best place for you and then go back to PDP and vote for PDP. If you feel that APC is far better than now with the situation that they are in, you have all tested it.
“My advice now is that people have lost their jobs, people have lost property, lost their businesses, lost their houses, and people are now living in fears. The kind of insecurity that we have now, in the next few years, a few months from now, if you don’t address it, it is giving people that are living in town to find it difficult to sleep. Nobody wants to come to Kaduna. Everybody is afraid.”
“So, I will like to advise the people of Kaduna that they should look inwards; look for good people that they know that will lead them, not the people that will come and do the government of family and friends, not the people that will come and do the government of family and friends.”
“So, that is my advice to the people of the state and so they should vote for PDP and then the PDP should give the people, the credible people that they will manage them and then help them out.”
“I will contest the Governor of Kaduna, in 2023. Being that I was there before, I was the one that handed the mantle of leadership to the current administration.”
“The situation that we are in now is something else. We know what was there. We know the challenges that we had. We know the effort that we had put in stabilizing the situation and then we also know what is currently happening.”
“I felt that whoever that will come in now will come as a new person, as a layman – somebody who does not know what was there before, somebody who does not know what was there before, somebody who does not understand what is going on now and then he will find it difficult to take the real situation at hand and then improve it.”
“Since I still have the opportunity to contest to serve the people of Kaduna and I felt that with the enormous knowledge and experience that I have with the goodwill that I have and knowing fully that, yes, I still have something to offer, something to contribute for the betterment of our people in future, I think I will not be doing myself justice and the people of Kaduna state, if I do not show the interest of looking for the Governorship seat of this state, not for myself”.
“I have not forgotten anything in the Government House that I want to go and pick it and I don’t have an agenda either to go and molest or to debar somebody or abuse anybody, or to deny somebody. The desire is how do I make Kaduna better tomorrow for our children and grandchildren to be better. “
“So, I think I have a duty towards that. By the grace of God, I will give it a trial. I have the right to contest but the giver is Allah who gives power to whoever he desires and he is the one that knows better. He knows the next person, the person that can do the job and he, Allah, has the final say,” he said.