Kano: We waited for right time to strike NNPP — Ganduje

Tamarauemi Ebimini

The National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress, APC, Dr. Abdullahi Umar Ganduje, has opened up about what his party did to defeat Governor Abba Kabir Yusuf of Kano State.

Ganduje, while reacting to the Appeal Court judgment, insisted that the New Nigerian Peoples Party, NNPP, and Governor Abba Yusuf went into the ring without making careful observations.

NNPP and Governor Yusuf had challenged the ruling at the Appeal Court but still lost. The court held that Yusuf was not a member of the party under which he contested.

Ganduje said, “They were in the PDP, and when the crisis heated up and they were punched repeatedly, they left the party and started groping for a platform. Unfortunately, they ran into a political party symbolizing fruits. They were given tickets because their leader was daydreaming; their leader was ambitious to be the president of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, but he was frightened.

“And because they desperately wanted a governor in Kano State, the party gave them a ticket to contest. But they made a serious blunder because, when they joined the party, INEC had closed the submission of nomination forms. But they were blind and uneducated. They went into the ring without making careful observation of this.

“They did not know that we were waiting. We took the file, submitted it to Dr. Nasiru Yusuf Gwuna, and told him to hold it tight. When we filed a petition at the Kano governorship election tribunal, we told the court that they were not fielded by the party. We told the court that when INEC closed accepting names of candidates, they did not join the party.”