The minister of state, Housing and Urban Development, Yusuf Ata, has said the former governor of Kano state, Rabiu Kwankwaso, is no longer attractive in the populous state.
Ata stated this while speaking with journalists after meeting with the national chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Dr Abdullahi Ganduje, at the party’s national secretariat in Abuja on Tuesday.
The minister said that Kwankwaso was struggling to join the APC due to this present political predicament, and his ‘Kwankwasiya’ was dying in Kano.
Ata said that except for the leader of the party in Kano state, Ganduje agrees, the New Nigerian Peoples Party chieftain can not be welcomed to the APC.
“Kwankwaso is no longer active in Kano. He is only coming to APC, not that we invited him. I assure you, even the President has all his records from the grassroots in Kano. He is no more attractive, no more alternative. So, he is struggling to be accommodated in the APC. That may bring a lot of crisis in the APC in Kano state. This is our position.
“Unless it is a decision from our father to accommodate him. I was in the House of Assembly in 1999 when Kwankwaso was the governor. So I know Kwankwaso very well. He is no longer attractive in Kano.
We have no deal unless the National Chairman says, and as a leader, we should accommodate him,” the minister added.
For his part, Ganduje said APC may accept Kwankwaso, given that abandoned people should not be allowed to wallow in darkness.
“When a fish runs out of water, that’s precisely what happens. If the water is drying, the fish has to find its way to water. So that is what is happening.
I will not say we are not ready to welcome him.
“When you see your son running to where he would get shelter, and you are a big brother in a big home, it is morally right to accommodate him.
“So we cannot say we cannot accommodate him because a friend in need is a friend indeed. We should not allow somebody who has been abandoned to wallow in darkness,” he said.
