The Elders’ Committee of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Kano State has endorsed Governor Rabi’u Musa Kwankwaso to contest for presidency next year.
The committee in a communiqué signed by Ambassador Kabiru Rabi’u and Comrade Saleh Jili after a meeting yesterday said their endorsement was in consideration of present “regrettable and avoidable situation” of leadership Nigeria has found itself under the PDP.
“It is very clear that the present incompetent leadership of the country cannot get us out of the present serious problems”, the elders said. They said the decision was unanimously reached in consideration of the country’s need for better and more dynamic leaders.
The battle for the presidential ticket of the APC is creating tension in Kano State where the supporters of Governor Rabiu Kwankwaso and those of former Head of State, Major General Muhammadu Buhari, have already clashed.
The state House of Assembly, dominated by the APC, has broken into two camps, each supporting Kwankwaso and Buhari.
The governor and former Head of State are leading contenders for the APC presidential ticket. Some members of the assembly, under the aegis of G34, had, late last week, endorsed Kwankwaso for the APC presidential ticket.
But signs that all was not well in the parliament emerged, yesterday, when a member of the group, Yusuf Abdullahi Atta, dissociated himself and some of his other colleagues from the endorsement, declaring support for Buhari.
Kano State Deputy Majority leader, Yusuf Suleiman Babangida, who disclosed the G 34 endorsement of the state governor, on Thursday, declared that the current security situation in the country requires a man with courageous disposition of Kwankwaso to handle. “The security of state and it’s citizens which is the first obligation that the law of the land places upon leadership is deteriorating at all levels due to the collapse of the centre”, the lawmaker said.
Babangida, who played a prominent role in the election that brought Kwankwaso to power in 2011, stated, “We the lawmakers in Kano House of Assembly, 34 of us precisely, hereby propose our leader, Dr. Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso, for the office of the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria”.
Babangida noted that his group’s conviction emanated from the fact that “Kwankwaso is eligible to occupy the office of the President,” saying, “We therefore consider this aspiration as the taste of every progressive mind who has concerns over the state of the nation. “
