Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso, the newly-elected governor of Kano State is returning to the job after an eight-year hiatus.
His election victory
Let me welcome you
to my residence here in Gandu Albasa, Kano and use this opportunity to
thank you for your support when we were in government and also for
supporting us when we were out of government in the last eight years.
We thank Almighty Allah for the support we received not only from the
members of the press, but the masses, the women, the youth, the elderly
and everybody across the state. Many still find it difficult to believe
what happened on the 26th of April, but I personally believe that the
truth is always constant, and that is what we have seen in the
gubernatorial election in Kano State.
Returning after eight years
During our first
term, which was between 1999 and 2003, what we were able to put on the
ground was enough for our people to return us to power. Our government
worked on all the dams and all the water treatment works we have in
Kano and established new ones. We established schools and rehabilitated
others. Our free feeding and uniform programme for primary school
pupils was successfully implemented. The health sector was not left
out. We had in place free antenatal services for our women who are
interested in going to government hospitals.
Victory of CPC during presidential election in Kano
I remember that
after the presidential election, many people gave up hope on the
ability of the PDP to win the governorship election. They thought
either CPC or ANPP was going to win. But I assured them that the
mistake the PDP made in 2007 was to allow me to leave my office as
Defence Minister. I went through the primary election, winning with
over 70 percent of the delegate votes and, just over night, liars from
Kano, I mean people who are irresponsible, went to Abuja to prevail on
our leaders to substitute me with another candidate.
You don’t allow
people to go through due process and then at the last minute, just one
day before I was to collect the party’s flag, I was advised to withdraw
from the race for no just reason. In all, I still believe God’s time is
the best. This is the time for PDP in Kano, and I believe PDP has come
to stay because people have weighed the two parties and have made the
right choice. The people have got what they want, and that was why
immediately after the election, there was wild jubilation all over the
state.
Multitude of abandoned projects
You see, when we
came in 1999, there were so many abandoned projects scattered across
the state. What we did was to set up a committee known as Abandoned
Projects Committee. Now that we are returning to power, we have done
the same, headed by the same person who did a good job in 1999.
Whatever project the government feels should be completed would be
completed because governance should be a continuous enterprise. It is
not like they (ANPP government) did when they took over from us in
2003. You see, people should learn from other people’s mistakes rather
than waiting to learn from their own mistakes. In 1999, there was no
project that was on the ground that we did not complete and we will try
and do the same with all abandoned projects by the grace of God.
Hostility to his victory by the incumbent party
In 1999, somebody
announced that we won election. In 2003, the referee said we did not
win election, whether rightly or wrongly, we should accept the results.
That does not mean we agreed. But we did not go to court. We did not
make any noise; rather, we congratulated them in the interest of the
state. We just picked our briefcases from government house and left.
Since I left the seat of power, I came back once, and that was to
celebrate the emir’s 45th anniversary on the throne, because I believe
there ought not to be two kings at the same time in one emirate.
Now, look at what
has happened. I did not contest election with this man (Ibrahim
Shekarau). I contested with his boy (Salihu Sagir Takai) and the
referee said after eight years, I won the election, and he is very
angry and does not want to accept that Kwankwaso won the election. What
we hear is that they are gathering evidence and preparing to go to
court, and that they are consulting their ‘babalawo’ (marabout) in
order to stop May 29 from coming. I even learnt that they stopped their
watches because they did not want to see May 29. I have collected my
certificate of return, so things are moving, yet they (Kano ANPP
leaders) are still living in the past. They are still in 2003 when they
won the election. In my opinion, anything that happens offers a lesson.
I am so happy that I congratulated them in 2003. I did so not from the
government house. I visited him (Shekarau) at his residence, and was
there for over an hour, in friendly conversation with him. Nobody has
done that in the history of this country. This was because I believe
that if God wants me to come back one day, or a member of PDP would win
election one day, it would happen. Eight years after, it is now on
record. It is now history. They made our leaders in Abuja to believe
that there is no PDP in Kano State, and Kwankwaso is the problem of the
party. Now we are the solution to the problem here in Kano.
Their own way of
doing things is to tell so much lies. They use deceit, religion,
ethnicity, sentiments and all sorts of things to have their way. But
this time around the people of Kano said no, “we want development, we
want peace, we want to go to schools, we want to go to hospitals and
see doctors and drugs. We want good life and we are tired with all
these lies.” I will ensure that their confidence in me is not just
thrown into the drains.
Reports he is on a vengeance mission
We have seen how
vengeance backfired. Between 1999 and 2003, it was only one permanent
secretary that proved to be the enemy of our government. We transferred
him from the office of the SSG to the office of the Head of Service,
and that’s him (governor Shekarau), now in the government house. Since
the time I left government, God knows how many permanent secretaries he
demoted. You see, what happened between 2002 and 2003 was that he was
transferred from one office to another, because he was fighting our
government. That explained why he joined the opposition party as soon
as he left the civil service, and by luck, he became the governor of
this state.
Since he became
the governor up to this moment, the most important programme of his
life is the destruction of Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso. But, by God’s grace,
he did not succeed. We are not on a vengeance mission. I don’t want to
remember all those bad stories. What I want to remember is what the 23
transition committees are doing. When we lost election in 2003, there
was only one transition committee and the committee was simply to
investigate us. Now, we have 23 transition committees, and none is on
an investigative or vengeance mission. All the committees are to evolve
ways by which we can improve water supply, education, health,
agriculture and how to clean up the city by removing the refuse that
litters the streets. They (ANPP and Shekarau) have been on a vengeance
mission for eight years, yet we have a return of Kwankwaso to
Government House, Kano. Apart from that, leaders should love and not
hate.
Leaders should not
push enmity too much to the extent of destroying human beings. Only God
can destroy, only God can build. If you are in doubt, then consider my
case, and you will see exactly that.
Enmity with the incumbent governor
Why I am so happy
with this election is only that we are back in government, of course
people are happy about that. I am happy because we have humbled this
man (Shekarau). He went and had his diploma in Zaria, and then became a
permanent secretary in the civil service. From there, he left the civil
service and within a few months, he became the governor.
As a result, he
now believes that whatever he imagines, whatever he conceives in his
mind, would become a reality. As soon as he became governor, the first
thing he did was to keep aside all those who assisted him to become
permanent secretary and governor, including Baba Buhari, who insisted
that he should fly the governorship flag of ANPP even when he had less
than ten percent of delegate votes in 2003. Before we knew it, he wants
to be president and, before long, all those who supported him to become
governor left ANPP for him, because of his ambition.
At the end of the
day, he succeeded in purchasing the delegates across the country, and
he has been sponsoring all the 36 state chapters of ANPP, plus Abuja,
and the party structures in all the 774 local government areas with
Kano State government treasury. Even President Jonathan had to organise
two fundraising dinners, and I contributed my resources to that fund
for him to become president. Across the country, so many other
candidates did that as well. But here in Kano, there was no fundraising
because the money was readily available in government treasury. So they
took money left, right and centre, and at the end of the day, with all
the money spent on jingles and campaigns and even in the few states
controlled by his party, the ANPP, they did not get up to one million
votes nationally. I got over one million votes in Kano. What a big
shame. If you calculate the cost of one vote for the taxpayers’ money
in Kano, you will be shocked.
It is a huge embarrassment, but the good thing is that he is
leaving Kano State Government House as a human being. Before now, he
thought he was a super human being. So now that we have made him to
become a human being, I think the lessons have been well learnt. If you
lose election today, accept it. If you win election, be happy and do
your best for your people. By the grace of God, Kano under our
leadership in the next four years will be a better place.
