Hunkuyi, others pledge to stop El-Rufai in 2019

Some Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) chieftains in Kaduna State, including Senator Suleiman Hunkuyi and governorship aspirant, Dr. Mohammed Sani Bello, have vowed to restrict Governor Nasir El-Rufai’s tenure in the state to one term in 2019.

They spoke at the weekend on the heels of El-Rufai’s statewide broadcast, in which he reiterated that Senator Shehu Sani, who represents Kaduna Central zone in the Senate, remains suspended from the All Progressives Congress (APC), until he meets some conditions.

But, Senator Hunkuyi, a former APC Senator representing Kaduna North and Dr. Bello, at a gathering of PDP members, condemned the policies and draconian style of El-Rufai’s administration.

Hunkuyi, who stormed the venue with hundreds of supporters remarked: “We came to tell you that we have formally left the APC and we shall not turn back again. We are ready to join hands to remove a common political enemy, who has retarded the development and growth of our state and return power to our great party, the PDP in 2019.

“We have moved to the PDP with all our structure to join hands to take back power in Kaduna State from the APC.”

The Senator advised PDP executives in the state to cooperate with the returnees to ensure that the party wrests power from the ruling APC.

Also, Dr. Bello, while addressing the PDP supporters said the state had never had it so bad since its creation in 1976, pledging to rescue the state from what he called vagaries of pervasive maladministration and restore public trust and confidence in government.

Similarly, reacting to El Rufai’s broadcast, the Chairman, Senate Committee on Banking, Insurance and other Financial Institutions, Senator Rafiu Ibrahim, described the Kaduna State governor as a “loose cannon and a liar,” who is one of the people that got the APC into the current mess it found itself.