The Northern Progressives Union (NPU), which is the umbrella organization for the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the North, has rejected any attempt by Abubakar Badaru Mohammed, the recently-retired governor of Jigawa State, to nominate himself for a ministerial position on the state’s behalf.
The stakeholders pleaded with President Bola Tinubu to resist the temptation of naming any of the recently-departed state governors as ministers in his cabinet in a statement released on Monday and signed on their behalf by Mohammed Ibrahim Kiyawa.
Kiyawa said the group is making the plea “based on the fact that they are all spent forces, failed politicians and disgruntled so-called leaders who do not fit into today’s reality of the present vision of the Renewed Hope mantra of the present administration.”
“We are the foot soldiers of the APC in this part of the country and therefore making a categorical statement urging Mr President and the APC as a political party not to entertain the idea of nominating any of the former Governors from the region in the incoming cabinet as they do not have the required capacity and capability to drive the process.
“Our demand is legitimate and is consequent upon the misdeeds of some of them during the 2023 general elections where most were moles and fifth columnists used by the opposition parties and in most cases funds given to them for elections were not touched.
“While President Tinubu was mobilizing at all levels, the former governor seeking ministerial nomination could not deliver votes from his area,” the statement further read.
Stakeholders contend that Jigawa, Yobe, and Zamfara states are among Northern Nigeria’s least politically astute, and as a result, they are more inclined to move in accordance with the body language of the main figures they associate with.
He said; “In Jigawa State 2023 Presidential Election, the Hadejia Emirate consisting of Birniwa, Kirikasamma, Guri, Hadejia, Malam Madori, Kaugama, Auyo and Kafin Hausa local governments, massively voted for APC owing to the fact that one of them was made APC governorship candidate for the first time ever since the creation of the state, the votes were not necessarily due to any funds disbursed by the former Governor.
“In the first place, the Governor never disbursed any money; the truth is that for some of us on the ground, it was found out that the Peoples Democratic Party PDP outspent APC, thus the reason for PDP gathering some considerable votes. Otherwise, it should have been a landslide for APC because of the zoning arrangement in favour of the governorship candidate of our great party as stated.
“The PDP had a very good showing in the Gumel Emirate comprising Gumel, Maigatari, Sule Tankarkar local governments. This again may be due to those places being traditionally PDP apologists and perhaps APC’s non-mobilization of the appropriate resources”, the group stated.
“APC did very well in the Ringim Emirate consisting of Ringim, Garki, Taura, Gagarawa owing to the philanthropy of a man called Gerawa who is arguably the biggest entrepreneur in the state and the biggest investor in the politics of the state.
“As for the Kazaure zone which is the governor’s zone, it was more of an even between the two parties. Again, it may be due to lack of necessary goodwill and lack of appropriate resources. The local governments include Babura, Kazaure, Gwiwa, Roni, Yankwashi.”
