The presidential candidate of the New Nigeria People’s Party (NNPP), Senator Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso, arrived in Kano to a huge crowd after concluding his presidential campaign rallies that took him to 36 states of the country.
The presidential candidate is expected to cast his vote at his ward in Kwankwaso village, Madobi Local Government Area of the state on Saturday.
The crowd of supporters, majorly youths and women, who donned the red cap and scarves, the insignia of the Kwankwasiyya Movement, were seen in hundreds making their way to Kwanar Dangora to receive the former Kano state governor.
The presidential candidate, who arrived at the venue early in the afternoon was still making his way to his Miller Road residence as at 8:25pm, a journey of less than an hour on a normal trip.
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Daily Trust reports that supporters of the party earlier suffered attacks from unidentified hoodlums with some vehicles set ablaze along Zaria road earlier in the day but security agents restored order.
The Chief Spokesperson of the NNPP Campaign Council in Kano, Sanusi Bature told Daily Trust that contrary to reports making round, Kwankwaso’s return to Kano via Kaduna where he concluded his campaign on Wednesday was not another campaign rally but a homecoming, adding that it was the affection of the supporters for the former governor that made them troop out en masse to receive him.
In a statement later shared, Bature said Kwankwaso was accompanied by the NNPP gubernatorial candidate, Engr. Abba K. Yusuf, his deputy, Comrade Aminu Abdussalam Gwarzo, and all the three Senatorial candidates of the party in Kano state.
He said prior to the visit, the police in Kano advised that all political parties should suspend their rallies to avoid clash but in a letter sent to the new Commissioner of Police, the NNPP said it is not staging a rally but rather receiving its Presidential candidate who would be in Kano to join other Nigerians in exercising their civic rights on Saturday.
Sanusi said: “We have thwarted the APC scheme to deny our members, supporters and stakeholders their fundamental freedom of political association as enshrined in the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
“We welcome the development from the joint security operation of the army, police and civil defence personnel who have arrested over 300 political thugs assigned to orchestrate attack on the motorcade of our presidential candidate,” he said.
But the Deputy Spokesman of the APC Campaign Council, Garba Yusuf Abubakar, who doubles as Commissioner of Water Resources, denied the allegations of the party’s complicity in the attack.
“We are not involved because we had withdrawn our campaign based on the advice by the police to all political parties. The APC, Kano government, Campaign Council are not aware not to talk of being involved in this incident,” he said.
