A remark by the APC gubernatorial candidate in Kaduna State, Senator Uba Sani, that the party’s presidential candidate, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, would garner massive votes in the state during the 2023 elections has been described as “laughable”.
The governorship candidate on the platform of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) in the state, Hon. Isa Ashiru, said that Sani’s remark has clearly shown that he is “completely out of touch with the reality on the ground.”
He made the statement in a press release signed by the Director for Public Affairs, Isa Ashiru Campaign Organisation, Alhaji Yakubu Lere.
New Citizen had reported that Sani, the senator representing the Kaduna Central District in the National Assembly, had stated that Governor Nasir El-Rufa’i would garner the highest votes in the state for the Tinubu/Shettima ticket in the 2023 presidential election because “El-Rufai reigns supreme” in the state.
He made the assertion during the inauguration of the APC vice-presidential candidate Kashim Shettima as the Chairman, Arewa Women for Tinubu (AWT), organised by the support group in Kaduna.
The lawmaker also debunked a rumour in the media of a “cold war” between Shettima and the governor, dismissing it as “malicious and borne out of ignorance of the brotherly relationship between El-Rufai and Shettima”.
In his reaction, however, Ashiru, generally seen as the leading opposition figure in the state, said Sani would soon realise that El-Rufa’i “is a liability to APC both at the state and national levels.”
He argued that the governor’s leadership style has eroded all the confidence the people of the state had on the party and would surely affect it in the coming election.
He said: “We urge Senator Sani to concentrate on his political jamboree, which is a failure from inception due to the inhuman policies of Governor El-Rufa’i of mass sacking of workers, demolition of people’s houses and shops, abandoning rural areas, sale of government properties, hike in school fees and lack of respect for human rights.
“We are assuaring Senator Uba Sani that he cannot win his election, while Bola Tunubu will not even get the required 25% from the state, not to talk of massive votes.”
He further told the APC candidate that people in the state “will reciprocate appropriately” on election day due to his “blind support” for all of El-Rufa’i’s “anti people policies in the state”.