•No underage voting in Kano LG poll, says gov

Juliana Taiwo-Obalonye; Romanus Ugwu, Abuja

Kano State Governor Abdullahi Ganduje has said that his resistance of Rabiu Kwankwaso’s control from outside is the main reason behind their feud in recent times.

He noted that there is no way his political history will be complete without Kwankwaso and neither will Kwankwaso’s political history be complete without him, adding that they were friends that fell apart when the center could no longer hold. 

Both men were political allies with Ganduje serving as deputy to Kwankwaso. A political feud between them, however, seems unresolvable, despite efforts by the party and President Muhammadu Buhari to do so.

They had taken their rivalry to the next level in January when they fixed rallies for the same area on the same day.

President Buhari had to prevailed on the former governor of the state also known as Kwankwasiyya, to call off his at the last minute. 

Ganduje while speaking to State House Correspondents on the sidelines during the Hightable Dialogue on Ethical Values and National Security held in Abuja, said: “Well, as you know we were very good friends. In fact my political history cannot be complete without Kwankwaso and the history of Kwankwaso politics cannot be complete without me. But somewhere, somehow, things went wrong. But we believe, in politics, you will get  to a point you cannot rule and manage a state and then you are being controlled from outside, you know that is  a very very difficult situation if you look at the psychology of leaders.”

He also criticised persons alleging underage voting in the state’s Local Government election held last weekend, explaining that there was no such thing  in Kano.

According to the Governor, “That was propaganda. You can ask the national observers who went there, they held a press conference, all those pictures were children from school assembly. It is not true, it is part of the propaganda. Let them go back to the states and investigate and see if children queued up and voted in the election? So we don’t even need to respond to such falsehood. Ask those who are credible and who witnessed the election, I think that is the most important thing rather than rely on the social media where things are crafted and pictures manipulated. We don’t rely on that.”

On the insecurity in the state, Ganduje said: “Well, we conducted local government elections precisely on Saturday February 10, and it was very peaceful. Independent observers were there, the result was 100 percent APC. The election was free and fair. people can see that there was no  insecurity as publicize. People believe that there is insecurity in Kano but in I can assure that Kano is peaceful.

“A month ago we had inter-faith dialogue between the Christians and Muslims and the Ulamas and the clergymen were all there. We had a resolution pertaining to the Peace and stability in the state. And since I came into office, there has not been any outbreak of instability in the state, nobody has been killed, nobody has been injured as a result of political activities.