By Ismail Auwal
The Former Governor of Kano State, Malam Ibrahim Shekarau said he was moved to defect New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP), because of the injustice and non-inclusiveness in the All Progressive Congress (APC).
Senator Shekarau while disclosing the reasons he left the ruling party said he has never been invited to any structured meeting of the APC.
“The constitution of the party provides for caucus meeting, elders’ meeting at all levels, no one has the right, as far the party constitution, is concerned, to reconstitute the composition of such bodies. Yet, to the best of my knowledge, I was never invited to such meeting.”
He noted that Ganduje approached him in his first tenure and asked that he nominate one person to be appointed commissioner.
“Shehu Na’allah Kura was one of the loyal and hardworking party members. So I gave his name.”
“The governor approached me again during his second term that he was granting our group two positions of commissionership, but he has selected one for us, we are to select another. And he said, he had selected Musa Iliyasu Kwankwaso and we said this is fraudulent.”
“In the first place, we were not disowning Kwankwaso but the fact is that he had been in APC and as a commissioner over a year ahead of our defection to APC, and as such, while we agree he’s one of us, but if we were to select, he couldn’t have been the one by any standard,” the Senator said.
“I, therefore, said since you are technically giving us only one position, you already had Shehu Na’allah Kura. If you want to continue with him, we have no objection and he agreed and hence Kura was reappointed for the second term.”
Shekarau said that despite the fact that Ganduje begs for his contributions he never requested our group to submit a name for any kind of appointment henceforth.
He noted that everybody Ganduje saying “we are begging you to come.” and he and the national chairman insisted.
“When the local government elections came, some two years ago, we were not involved at all. In my position, even if I were never a governor, minister, or senator, at least, at my age in my local government or ward, I deserve some attention as an elder in the party, in my Ward, and local government. Surprisingly, I was never consulted, never contacted; chairmen and councillors were traditionally nominated not elected at any party structure meeting. Nobody consulted me to nominate any, even the councillor of my ward.”
“The party leaders know that I have governed Kano for eight years, there’s no ward in the 484 in Kano where I do not have mass followership.”
