Kano gov’ship: Ganduje endorses dep gov, picks senatorial ticket

Kano State Governor, Abdullahi Umar Ganduje, has endorsed his deputy, Nasiru Gawuna, as the governorship candidate of his party, the All Progressives Congress (APC), ahead of the 2023 general elections.

Ganduje, it was gathered, has also settled for a former Commissioner for Local Government and Chieftaincy Affairs, Murtala Sule-Garo, as Gawuna’s running mate.

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Sources told our correspondent that the decision was reached on Sunday after a meeting at the government house.

It was gathered that it took the intervention of some elders of the party and an elder statesman in the state to prevail on Sule-Garo to agree to be Gawuna’s running mate.

Sule-Garo, who is believed to have the control of the party structure at the local government level, was seen as the preferred candidate of the wife of the governor, Hafsat Ganduje, and thus considered the most formidable aspirant going into the party’s primaries.

Daily Trust gathered from multiple sources at the meeting that the decisions reached at the meeting would be communicated to an expanded stakeholders’ meeting holding later this week.

According to a source, it was also agreed that Ganduje should pick the ticket for Kano North Senatorial District and that loyalists of the governor would purchase the expression of interest and nomination forms for him today.

Kano North is currently represented at the red chamber by Senator Barau Jibrin, a member of the G-7, which has been at daggers-drawn with the governor since last year, and lost out on Friday at the Supreme Court.

Jibrin, who has also declared to run for the governorship of the state has, however, said he would remain in the party and see through with his governorship ambition.

Another member of the G-7, Sha’aban Sharada, a federal lawmaker for Kano Municipal, has also reportedly picked his expression of interest and nomination forms to contest the governorship of the state.

This is also as the leader of the G-7, Senator Ibrahim Shekarau, who picked the Kano Central Senatorial forms last week, is said to have reconciled with Ganduje and has been given a clean bill to return to the senate without a challenge within the party like in 2019.

Meanwhile, a former Speaker of the state’s House of Assembly, Alhassan Rurum, is said to have dumped the APC after he felt disappointed with the anointing of Gawuna for the governorship ticket.

Rurum, the Member of the House of Representatives representing Rano/Bunkure/Kibiya, is among the top politicians hoping to clinch the party’s governorship ticket.