Ganduje to Kwankwaso: I won my re-election not imposed

Governor Abdullahi Ganduje has faulted the claim by his predecessor, Senator Rabiu Kwankwaso that he did not win the 2019 gubernatorial election, but was imposed on the people by powerful forces.

The governor, in a statement issued by the Commissioner for Information, Malam Muhammad Garba, on Monday, stressed that contrary to the assertion made in an interview with a national daily, Kwankwaso managed a well-organised election rigging network, particularly in the metropolitan local governments, where youths without even voters’ cards were engaged to perpetrate the act.

He added that it was clear that barely hours into the voting, most of the ballot boxes were said to have been stuffed, only for the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to discover that either card readers were not used or the voters are not captured in its data and therefore had to cancel the results from many centres and declared the election inconclusive.

Ganduje stated that it was unfortunate that as a leader who was severally involved in the election process, Kwankwaso is still contesting the result of an election conducted by statutory body and upheld by courts of law.

He frowned at Kwankwaso’s interview, describing it as an attempt to rubbish his administration.

He noted that the interview has done more harm than good to the former governor, adding that the gesture negates the spirit of a genuine peace and reconciliation he preached to his followers in the last few days to avoid derailing.

The commissioner stated that Kwankwaso should have thanked Ganduje for completing many of the projects he abandoned, adding that the people of Kano are paying the price for the unparallel policy of continuity that saw the completion of many projects in the last six years in the state.

Garba, while speaking on education which he said Kwankwaso talk big, noted that Ganduje has done a lot in the education sector to include the payment of over N15 billion backlog of scholarships to indigent students in overseas left by the Kwankwaso administration.

He added that the current administration has paid the sum of N3.5 billion for students in Sudan, N4.5 billion for students in Cyprus, N384 million for those in France, while it is on the verge of paying for students in Egypt and India.

The information commissioner noted that in addition to the implementation of the free and compulsory basic and secondary education in Kano State, the administration has been able to carry out massive infrastructural development in all its tertiary institutions and accreditation of many courses.