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Ganduje, Kwankwaso trade words over ‘failed’ push for ministerial position

By Guardian Nigeria
30 August 2023   |   3:23 am
Presidential candidate of New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP), Rabiu Kwankwaso, and National Chairman of All Progressives Congress (APC), Abdullahi Ganduje, are in war of words over failure of President Bola Tinubu to appoint the former as minister.
Ganduje

Umar Abdullahi Ganduje. Photo/facebook/drabdullahiumargandujeofr/

Presidential candidate of New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP), Rabiu Kwankwaso, and National Chairman of All Progressives Congress (APC), Abdullahi Ganduje, are in war of words over failure of President Bola Tinubu to appoint the former as minister.

  
Ganduje alleged that Kwankwaso lobbied to be appointed Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) in Tinubu’s cabinet. But the spokesperson for NNPP Presidential Campaign Council, Ladipo Johnson, returned the salvo, saying Ganduje was merely seeking relevance.
  
The new APC boss, in a viral video, said Kwankwaso supported the demolition of buildings in Kano to portray himself as a minister, who would revive the Abuja masterplan.
  
The video was streaming Ganduje’s meeting with some of his loyalists and party supporters from Kano at the APC secretariat in Abuja. Ganduje stated that his predecessor was desperate to become FCT Minister, but was denied the position by Tinubu. He added that the demolition of buildings approved by his administration was the only way Kwankwaso and Governor Abba Yusuf could express their frustration under the guise of sanitising Kano’s masterplan.
  
The APC chairman said: “Is it not the FCT minister position that he wanted? That was why he demolished buildings in Kano under the guise that he wanted to defend the master plan. If you ask him what the master plan is, all you would hear is, ‘We will reset the Kano masterplan. We have promised Kano people that we will demolish houses, even if they are 1,000-storey buildings’. Look, if an illiterate person does not know he is one, he is certainly blind. That is what befell him.”

MEANWHILE, Johnson said Kwankwaso was not going to waste his time on Ganduje, who he described as inconsequential. He said: “Does anyone really still listen to what Ganduje says? The fact that he is the APC national chairman does not mean that he is a rational human being. That is all I have to say.
  
“We are not going to waste our time on somebody who is inconsequential, no matter what the APC thinks they are doing. It is as simple as that.”