Sen. Yusuf Datti Baba-Ahmed, the Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP) aspirant who pulled out of the Kaduna governorship race on Tuesday, has said politicians who overspend to get into power will replenish the debt from government coffers when they eventually win.
Baba-Ahmed, an economist, one-time presidential aspirant and former senator who represented Kaduna North Senatorial District, had pulled out of the PDP primaries less than 24 hours to the election.
Hinting at money politics as his reason for pulling out, he said: “I stand for probity, and honesty and for where those who have, must not bully those who don’t have. I stand for the fact that if you overspend on getting into power, you will replenish that debt, and this is very wrong. The insecurity, the poor economy and everything is directly attributable to the way we practice our politics.”
He stressed that he was not comfortable with the way the PDP was going about turning aspirants into candidates adding that, “any right-thinking politician knows that we are taking ourselves way back into darkness. This is clear and easy to see.”
When asked if he would support any of the aspirants and eventually the party candidate, he said: “I can only support any candidate that is honourable and has boldly undertaken honourable routes of obtaining power, clean routes to obtaining power. I cannot support blindly.”
