Desmond Mgboh, Kano
Kano State Governor Abdullahi Umar Ganduje has aligned himself with the position of the National Executive of the All Progressives Congress (APC) on the Edo Governorship elections, insisting that the disqualification of the Edo State Governor, Godwin Obaseki, was due to concerns about ‘legal issues’.
Governor Ganduje bared his mind on Monday in Kano during an interactive session with the media to mark his five years in office as the governor.
Saying that party crises are not exclusive to the APC, he declared that ‘as far as this issue (Disqualification) is concerned, we are more worried about legality. We have to follow the rules and regulations in conducting our affairs for the elections.
‘We are conscious of legal issues pertaining to the elections. You are all aware how we won elections in Bayelsa State and due to legal issues, we lost that elections to the other party” he stated.
‘We are following the Nigeria Constitution and the electoral law in trying to manage our elections issues,’ the governor explained.
‘We believe the national headquarters, as far as Kano State is concerned, is doing what it takes in order to see to the success of the party in Edo State,’ he added even as he remained optimistic that despite the current crisis, the party is poised to win the state governorship.
Related: Edo PDP Guber: Don’t jump the queue, PDP contender says to Obaseki
Ganduje restated his call on the Federal Government to review the ECOWAS Treaty and to ban the influx of foreign herdsmen into Nigeria, insisting that the herders from other parts of West Africa enter into the country with arms and ammunition, intimidating local farmers on their grazing routes.
‘This is an issue that must be squarely handled by the Federal Government and by the state governments to end the plight of farmers in their hands, Ganduje stated, adding the rampage of the foreign herdsmen is affecting the security of lives and socio-economic development of Nigeria.
‘The reason I made the statement was that in those years, the 1970s, our grazing routes were adequate enough to accommodate the herds and the herdsmen.’
He explained that due to Climate Change in West Africa, there has been an influx into the country of herdsmen from all across West Africa.
He explained that over the years the grazing routes could no longer contain cattle, given their size and numbers, a situation that created a lot of problems between foreign herders and local farmers, adding that in an effort to mitigate the situation, the foreign herdsmen have decided to bear arms.