Politics
2019: Guber Aspirant Vows To Rescue Kaduna
The Senator representing Kaduna North in the National Assembly and a gubernatorial aspirant on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party ( PDP) , Senator Suleiman Hunkuyi has declared that his gubernatorial ambition is triggered by the urgent need to rescue the state from bad governance it has been subjected to within the last three and half years under Governor Nasir El- Rufai.
Hunkuyi made the avowal as PDP stakeholders across the 11 local governments in Kaduna South Senatorial District expressed their support to his ambition.
Addressing thousands of party supporters in Angwa Wakili in Zango- Kataf Local Government Area of the state over the weekend , Senator Hunkuyi said Kaduna State under El-Rufai, is not only groaning under heavy debts but also retrogressing across the various sectors”.
Hunkuyi was one of the 14 Senators who severed ties with the All Progressives Congress ( APC) on July 24 and joined the PDP.
According to him, one of the hundreds of billions of debts suffocating the state government under Governor Nasir El- Rufai , is the N34 billion owed pensioners alone in terns of their unpaid entitlements like gratuities and monthly pension payment .
Hunkuyi explained that it was for this reason that other Senators from the state and himself kicked against the approval of $350 million foreign loan request the state government forwarded to the Senate through the presidency early in the year .
His words: ” I have no regret whatsoever as a senator from Kaduna State for kicking against the $350m foreign loan request of the state government because the request was not for the interest of the people of the state .
” The three senators from the state and the Senate , after critically looking into the said loan, saw that there was no need for it and that is that aside the fact that there was no iota of sincerity of purpose in the loan request by the governor .
” Within the last three and half years , El-Rufai has been in office, billions and billions of monies in terms of monthly allocations, bail outs from the federal government , remittance from Paris club etc , have been received by him with little or nothing to show for them.
“Most of the roads within the state are bad, state owned hospitals are not functional and well equipped, morale of civil servants very low and so on and so forth”.
He therefore appealed to PDP faithful in the zone to support his aspiration of clinching the party’s gubernatorial ticket in the coming primary election to enable him slug it out with El-Rufai in the March 2, 2019 gubernatorial election .
He assured the people that if elected, all the 800 districts heads across the state relieved of their positions would be reinstated within a week after his swearing in.
This he explained, must be done because government or democracy, is all about people just as he also promised to review cases of 25, 000 sacked teachers along with their counterparts at the 23 local government areas of the state .
Earlier in their expression of support for Hunkuyi’s aspiration, PDP stakeholders from the zone like Hon Sam Bassa of the Zango – Kataf local government and Hon James Bulus from Kachia , assured him of their total support.
Bassa who is the PDP party chairman in Zango- Kataf , said since Hunkuyi was there for the southern Kaduna people in the 2011 general election, when the late governor of the state , Patrick Yakowa , contested for the governorship seat of the state , they will surely reciprocate by voting for him overwhelmingly at both the primary and general elections .
” You have been with us over the years as somebody who attended Kafachan Teachers College and College of Education and most importantly one who stood out firmly from Kaduna North in 2011 to campaign and ensure victory for our late son, Gov Patrick Yakowa in 2011, consolidating the his of a southern Kaduna person becoming elected of the state then.
Nneka Amaechi-Nnadi, Abuja
Mr Ojukwu, who recently returned to the interim National Working Committee led by Senator Esther Nenadi Usman, noted that the party had 34 elected members in the House of Representatives, eight Senators, and 80 members at the state Houses of Assembly after the 2023 general elections.
“Now we lost all of them,” he said. “I don’t think we have as many as five members in the National Assembly.”
The former national officer of the LP talked to journalists in Abuja and said he chose to join the caretaker committee led by Senator Nenadi-Usman because they are now the officially recognized leaders of the Party.
“I chose to work with the caretaker committee to help save the Labour Party, for the benefit of the party. I also want to use this chance to ask my colleagues at the national, state, and local government levels to come together and help rebuild our party.
“Another election is around the corner. We lost everything we have. They have left to other political parties. So I’ll reach out to all my friends in the other group to get together and work on making this party stronger again.
“The caretaker committee has formed a reconciliation committee. Let’s come together and talk so that we can restore the first opposition political party in Nigeria.”
Mr Ojukwu, who was part of the Julius Abure’s group, said there are no more factions in the LP.
He added, “There is a court ruling, and since it is valid, the right people are in the correct positions.”
He urged Barr Abure and others to drop the legal cases they have filed because they are not helping the party.
“Litigations are killing political parties”, he said. “They’ve seen many political parties disappear because of legal battles, and the Labor Party is losing support every day, which makes me feel sad.”
Mr Ojukwu said he did not think joining the Senator Nenadi-Usman’s NWC was a betrayal of the Abure group, describing himself as “the oxygen” of that faction.
“I’m with this group because of the verdict. But I never betrayed anybody. Rather, I was betrayed,” he added.