Kano State Governor Abdullahi Ganduje has challenged Senator Rabi’u Musa Kwankwaso to launch his 2019 presidential campaign in Kano.
Ganduje spoke yesterday at the Government House at an empowerment programme on money transfer for women.
About 6,600 women from the 44 councils each got N15,000 to boost their business.
The governor said: “Kano is not and will never welcome Kwankwaso. The people have the constitutional right to make their democratic choices. And as such, we have all the right to reject him and we have already rejected him.
“We never considered him from day one as a presidential material. We shall continue to maintain our position about him. We know nobody but President Muhammadu Buhari.
“We, the great people of Kano, as he knows, will explore every democratic means possible to reject (Kwankwaso) and show him the exit from political participation, even before the general election comes.
“We witnessed the demise of distinguished personalities, of which he chose not to come; we had fire outbreaks and this man did not care to come and sympathise with the victims.
“We raised a special committee to find the cause of the disasters and collect donations for the victims. A staunch Kwankwanso follower was included in the committee, but Kwankwanso didn’t allow him to participate in the committee’s meetings, neither did he send a dime as his contribution.
“Kano people, I am asking you, does this man have any concern for you and your families? In whose interest is he doing all these things? This man doesn’t even have an iota of feeling about Kano people.
“Because he knows he is not welcomed in Kano, he chose to stay away and launch his unorganised and unpopular campaign elsewhere.
“Kano is solely for Buhari come 2019. That is why we said we are waiting for him to come to Kano and launch his campaign. We shall use all democratically accepted ways and say No!”
On the empowerment programme, Ganduje said: “We are doing this to uplift your standard of living and make you self-reliant because we have greater concern for you and your families.
“This we are doing in compliance with President Muhammadu Buhari’s spirit of human development. We believe that any step taken by our dear President deserves to be followed.”
