By: AUSTINE AGBO EMMANUEL, Kaduna
Former chieftain of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), Honourable Sani Sha’aban, has said that he remains the authentic Governorship candidate of Action Democratic Party (ADP) in the forthcoming general elections.
Sha’aban made this known while fielding questions from journalists shortly after the Agenda One on One Policy Dialogue, a programme organized by Civil Society Groups in Kaduna State on Tuesday.
He alleged that a lot of political actors are trying everything possible to ensure he does not emerge in any political party, same way he was sabotaged from the Hausa BBC Programme with the Kaduna guber candidates, noting that unknown to them, the process that produced him was witnessed by relevant agencies.
The ADP candidate while reassuring Kaduna residents of good representation if elected to Sir Kashim Ibrahim House, stressed that he will give fire brigade approach to education, health and other relevant sectors in Kaduna State as basic necessities to improve the quality of their livelihood.
Sha’aban added that he will consolidate on good policies by the current administration, and then reverse whatever policy that is not properly in place like hike in school fees so as to make Education affordable for all even as Kaduna is known to be the center of learning.
Also speaking with newsmen shortly after the programme, a member of the Partnership for Issue Based Campaign in Nigeria (PiCAN), Mr. Yusuf Goje said the event is to give candidates of various political parties the platform to tell the people what they intend to do when they emerged victorious as an aftermath of the forthcoming 2023 polls.
Goje said the candidates will be made to sign a social contract with the civil society groups so that they can be able to hold them accountable to the people in the nearest future when they want to deviate from their campaign promises.
He said, “over the past few months, we have been engaging the Governorship candidates to know what they have for the good people of Kaduna State in terms of what they will do, how they will do it, where they will get the money to do it and what we should expect four years down the line.
“It is an opportunity for critical stakeholders especially the civil society sectors to also ask questions and engaged candidates in the health, education, social development and every other sector.
“From our own assessment of the ADP candidate, he looks prepared and he is also clear on what he wants to do but it’s left for the residents of Kaduna State based on what he has told them on what to do and how he wants to do it to determine whether he is the right candidate for them or not.
“For us is just to provide the platform to ensure that we focus on issues because the era where people just come and talk with stories and mantras is gone.
“The real issue of poverty, unemployment, out of school children and every other challenge that face us is what is in the front burner and we want the most prepared candidate to be the one to win the election so that these issues will be addressed by the end of the day.
“We are seeing a shift from where we are not like before where rallies are put together and people come out to sing, shout and dance. Now, based on this engagement, all the comments and commitments made by these candidates are being recorded and we have a website where all of these commitments are going to be uploaded including the videos so that whoever wins between these candidate these things will be removed and articulated and presented to them and it will be the yardstick within which we will use to measure their performance and at the end of the day hold them accountable.
“That is why we are getting them so they can make specific commitment on what they want to do for the residents of Kaduna State and those are the things we are recording and one of the things we need do before the election, all the commitments he has made we want to put them into a document where we will also engage him and get him to sign a social contract so that when he gets into office we will use it as a document and social contract that we will use to hold him accountable to the people,” he said.
