Abdullahi Ganduje, the governor of Kano State, on Monday challenged Rabiu Kwankwaso, the NNPP’s presidential candidate, to hold a rally in the state to test his public support.
Ganduje defended the massive attendance of supporters for his All Progressives Congress presidential candidate, Bola Tinubu, in the state earlier in the day during a live appearance on Channels Television’s Politics Today.
“Kwankwaso is a presidential candidate, there is no doubt about that. But equally, we are on the ground and many of his people are now in our political party,” he said.
“So, if Kwankwaso thinks that he can win the party, let him hold a march like this and compare what will happen if he can do so.”
Commenting on the likelihood that Ibrahim Shekarau, another of his predecessors who has now switched allegiances, will get support for his party, Ganduje questioned the political relevance of the former minister of education.
“Pertaining to Shekarau, we won our election without Shekarau. Later, we invited him into our party and he decided to leave the party to Kwankwaso’s party.
“Later on, he left that party to Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) where he was originally. So, you can see that these are nomads in politics. You expect that people who run from one party to another will lose followers.
“Once you change your political party, you cannot carry everybody to where you want to go. You will leave some followers. He left a majority of his followers in APC and then he left others in NNPP. He then left many there. Where he is now, well, we will live to see,” he said.
Additionally, Ganduje addressed concerns brought up earlier this month by Alhassan Ado-Doguwa, the majority leader of the House of Representatives.
Ado-Doguwa asserted that despite Ganduje’s successful administration of the state, people in charge of the party’s affairs there were treating loyal party members unfairly and pressuring them to leave the organization.
But speaking on that, the governor said that the legislator’s grievances had been resolved.
He said, “Having internal wranglings in a party is not new. Honourable Alhassan Ado-Doguwa and our former commissioner for local government, who is now the deputy gubernatorial candidate, had a misunderstanding.
“But we sat down under my chairmanship and everything is put in order now. Even today, they were together; they even took pictures together and issued a press release together. So, everything is normal within our party.”