*denies under age voting in LG election
By; SUNDAY ODE, Abuja
Kano State Governor, Abdulahi Ganduje on Tuesday explained reasons why he fell out with his political allied, Senator Rabiu Kwankwaso, saying that the former governor was bent on controlling his government from outside.
Ganduje was deputy governor to Kwankwaso and the later was believed to have literally installed him as his replacement before he moved to the Senate in 2015, but the two can no longer see eye ball to eye ball.
Speaking to State House correspondents at the Presidential Villa, Abuja, Governor Ganduje said while it was true that both of them had been close political allies, the control his predecessor sought to exercise over him was unacceptable.
He said: “Well, as you know we were very good friends. In fact my politics 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 one is very very difficult to happen if you look at the psychology of leaders.”
Ganduje also denied allegations of insecurity in the state and suggestions that the last Saturday council election which gave his party 100 percent success was dominated by under age voters.
“Well, we conducted local government elections precisely on Saturday, 10th February and it was very peaceful. Independent observers were there, the result was a 100 per cent APC. The elections free and fair. So you can see that the insecurity was publicized outside Kano. People believe here that there is insecurity but in Kano, there is peace and stability.
“A month a go 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.
“So you can see that the propaganda outside the state is that there is security in the state, practically we have been showing that it is false.
“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 ask the people did they queue up and vote 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 rather than relying on the social media where things are crafted, and take pictures that were prearranged. We don’t rely on that,” the governor submitted.
Also speaking to State House correspondents, Bauchi Governor, Mohammed Abubakar said the time was ripe for the country to give approval to the establishment of state police.
The governor dismissed fears in some quarters that the chief executives of states might abuse the use of state police, saying that the institution should first be considered.
“Well, the nation is a federation. The Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria provides for a federal system and in federal system, the federating units are all independent in their own sphere of influence. We copied the Constitution from the American Constitution and if you go to America you discover that there is County Police, there is State Police and then Federal Police.
“If we are going to engender true federalism, that is probably the beginning.
“I do not think so, there will always be fears but we should not think in terms of individuals in Nigeria, that is our bane, we should think in terms of developing institutions. When we develop institutions and the plain truth, they take care of the indiscretions of individuals,” he stated.
