By Joseph Edegbo
First Kaduna State Chairman of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), Northwest Nigeria, Ibrahim Yaro Suleiman has insisted that should Isa Ashiru clinch Kaduna state gubernatorial ticket of the PDP, he would floor incumbent Governor Nasir el-Rufai at the 2019 polls before noon on the day of election.
Similarly, another former State Chairman of the PDP and mercurial politician, Yaro Makama Rigachikun also laments that Kaduna state has been taken hostage by strangers and that Kaduna Government House has been shut from the public and made as an exclusive preserve for a cabal, vowing that should Ashiru become governor, Kaduna state will be returned to its rightful owners.
The two party chieftains gave Local Government and Wards officials of the PDP in Kaduna South Local Government Area of Kaduna state the assurances during a consultation meeting with Ashiru Campaign Committee Organisation, headed by Ambassador Sule Buba.
“Ashiru, is regarded as the topmost contender for the gubernatorial ticket of the PDP in Kaduna state. .
Said Yaro Sulieman: “It is no longer news that this is the most unpopular government that Kaduna state has ever had. Apart from the mass suffering of people as a result of poor administration and unreasonable sacking of a large workforce, the available opportunities for ordinary people to manage are now taken over by friends of the government who live outside Kaduna state. Even the job of parking and disposing of waste is regarded as too high for our people. Instead strangers are brought in and paid huge sums to park them as consultants.
“There is nothing like human feelings towards our people. These are some of the things that when Isa Ashiru is given the ticket of the PDP, and defeats el-Rufai, he will come and make right. I want to assure you, that on that day of election, before 12 noon, incoming result will show that Ashiru will roundly defeat el-Rufai. Ashiru is the best choice for the PDP if el-Rufai must be shown the way out with much ease,” he told the cheering hall full of PDP supporters and delegates to the September gubernatorial primaries of the party.
On his part, Yaro Makam said: “The truth is that there is no state that does not have its problem with their governors. But that of Kaduna state in excess and worse. Today, Kaduna state is in the firm dictatorial grip of the governor, a few cronies and those who have never lived in Kaduna state. Kaduna state is held hostage by strangers and government house is shut away from the public. It does not look like a place where people voted with the peoples vote live. The way this government is averse to the general public is very strange. This has never happened in this state. No wonder this government is too distant to understand the misery it has put people into. When Ashiru gets the ticket of the PDP, God on our side, PDP will form the next government in Kaduna state and he shall restore civility, return dignity to the electorates, liberalise leadership so that he can create the kind of development that Governor Ahmed Maikafir did for the state between 1999-2007,” he said.
The PDP Chairman of Kaduna South, LGA, Yahaya Abubakar in his remarks said that Ashiru was well known to his members and enjoys broad support from them. He affirmed that they have resolved to give the Kudan born politician their bulk vote in the September primaries of the party.
Ashiru, who was Kaduna State House of Assembly member between 1999-2007 and the Appropriation Committee Chairman for the period, also represented Kudan/Makarfi Federal Constituency in the Reps between 2007 and 2015. He contested for the PDP guber ticket under PDP in 2014 and lost to then governor Mukhtar Ramalan Yero who was more or less made the sole candidate of the party. He went to the APC to seek for the same opportunity, but lost again to Nasir el-Rufai, the preferred candidate of Gen. Mohammadu Buhari (rtd), the Presidential candidate of the APC.
Ashiru, a founding member of the PDP, left the APC in June this year and returned to the PDP citing, bad and deceitful governance as part of his reason for leaving the APC.
