…says ‘I can’t be controlled from outside’
Governor Abdullahi Ganduje of Kano State has said viral photos and videos of underage children voting in last Saturday’s local government elections as ‘propaganda’ used by his political enemies to thwart his goodwill in the state.
Recall that the governing All Progressives Congress, APC, won 100 per cent of all chairmanship and councillor seats in all the 44 local governments in the state.
However, the social media has been awash with images of children queuing to vote, sparking national outrage.
The Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, on Monday washed its hands off the scandal, saying the election was conducted by the Kano State Independent Electoral Commission.
Speaking with journalists at the presidential villa on Tuesday, Mr. Ganduje said the images were simply propaganda orchestrated by his political opponents loyal to his predecessor, Rabiu Kwankwaso.
“Ask the international observers who went there, they held a press conference after they went round. All those pictures of children are pictures of assembled children they took, so it’s not true, it is part of the propaganda,” he said.
He also said Mr. Kwankwaso who is a Senator, resorted to propaganda because of his failure to go to Kano and participate in the election.
“Ask them, did they go back to the state to queue up and take part in the election? They were not able to do so, so we don’t even need to respond to such falsehood,” he said.
“What is important is to ask those who are credible and who witnessed the election; that is what is important than relying on the social media where things are crafted, we don’t rely on that,” he said.
Speaking on his alleged feud with his predecessor, Ganduje said although his politics is not complete without Kwankwaso while that of Kwankwaso cannot be complete without his (Ganduje) too.
In his words: “But one important thing is that you cannot rule and manage a state and you are being controlled from outside, you know that one is very difficult to happen if you look at the psychology of leaders. That is the issue,” he said.
