Governor Ganduje tells Kwankwaso that he is a personae non gratia in Kano State

PRESIDENTIAL candidate Senator Rabiu Kwankwaso has been told that he is not welcome in his native Kano State by his former deputy and the incumbent governor Umar Ganduje because the people of the state are solidly behind President Muhammadu Buhari.

Currently the senator representing Kano Central Senatorial District, Senator Kwankwaso twice served as Kano State governor, with Governor Ganduje then as his deputy. However the two have since parted ways after Senator Kwankwaso decided to challenged President Buhari for the All Progressives Congress's (APC) presidential ticket, ultimately leading to him leaving the party.

Senator Kwankwaso has since left the APC and defected to the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), where he shall be vying for the presidential ticket. However, he has found it hard to hold rallies in Kano State as Governor Ganduje has made it clear that his loyalties are to President Buhari and the state government will remain loyal to the APC.

Speaking over the weekend in Kano at an empowerment programme for women held at Government House, Governor Ganduje declared that the people of the state will vote en masse for President Buhari in 2019. he also criticised Senator Kwankwaso as a man driven by personal ambition and not one who was bothered about the plight of the people.

Governor Ganduje said: “We have the right to reject him at wish, we have already rejected him and we never considered him from day one, as presidential material. We shall continue to maintain our position about him and we know nobody but President Muhammadu Buhari.

“We, the great people of Kano will use every democratic way possible to reject him and show him an exit from political participation, even before the general election comes our way. We had fire outbreaks in some of our markets and this man did not care to come and sympathise with the victims, after which we raised a special committee that was given the responsibility of finding the remote causes of such disaster as well as given the mandate to collect contributions so as to alleviate some of the sufferings of the victims.

“We included as a member of the committee, somebody, a staunch follower of Kwankwaso but this man didn’t allow that person to participate in all the meetings of the committee and neither did he send a penny as his contribution. Somebody will just wait somewhere telling his people that they should stay clear of anything about Kano, is this how you want lead people? Where is the concern?"

According to the governor because Senator Kwankwaso knows that he is not welcome in Kano and he will be never be welcomed, he has chosen to stay away from the state. He added that the former governor now goes to other places to launch his unorganised and unpopular campaigns.

Governor Ganduje added: “Kano people, I am asking you, does this man really has 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.