North won’t vote APC in 2019 —Kazaure

Two-time Minister and Nigeria’s former Ambassador to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Senator Ibrahim Kazaure, has called on the leaders of the governing All Progressives Congress (APC) to perish the thought of winning votes from the North in 2019 elections.

Kazaure, who was elected Senator in the aborted Third Republic and served as Majority Whip, spoke in Ibadan, Oyo State, on Saturday, after a closed-door meeting with a former governor of Oyo State and Accord national leader, Senator Rashidi Ladoja.

His visit came barely a week after the Strategy Review and Inter-Party Affairs Committee chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and former Minister of Information, Professor Jerry Gana, met Ladoja in Ibadan to discuss the merger of Accord with PDP as part of the mega coalition being put together for 2019.

Kazaure said the level of resentment against the APC in the North had made governors elected on the platform of the party refuse to hold council election and test their popularity among northerners for fear of people’s electoral revolt.

Reminded that the council election has always been swept by the ruling party where it is conducted, Kazaure said “such impunity” was no longer possible, particularly in the North because Nigerians and northerners had become wiser.

“Let the northern governors call council election tomorrow. PDP is stronger than APC in the North. Let INEC summon a credible election with one man having only one vote across the country, APC, I can assure you, will not win.

“PDP is stronger and it is a household name in all the nook and crannies of the country. No party can rule this country successfully apart from the PDP. We have seen PDP and we are seeing APC now. The difference is clear.

“A dollar exchanged for N168 when we handed over government to Buhari and APC. Today, most big men can’t take their children to school outside within the country let alone abroad,” he said.

Told that APC seems relatively stable than PDP which is torn apart by a series of crises, he replied, “That may be so here (South-West), but in the northern part of the country, it is not so.

“If we go for election tomorrow, APC will be roundly defeated. If the northern APC governors want to test their popularity, let them conduct local government elections in their states,” he reiterated.

On the purpose of his visit to Ladoja, he said: “I came to pay homage to my friend, Senator Ladoja, who is not only a big leader in the South-West but also a big national player on Nigeria’s political turf.”

But Sunday Tribune gathered that Kazaure’s visit was in connection with the presidential bid of the immediate past governor of Jigawa State, Alhaji Sule Lamido, and to also woo Ladoja to come back to the PDP which he left in 2010.

Lamido, it was gathered, was in a telephone conversation with Ladoja during the closed-door meeting held at the Bodija residence of Ladoja and which had Senator Femi Lanlehin, Barrister Bayo Lawal, Dr Nureni Adeniran, Alhaji Nureni Adisa, Honourable Fatai Adesina and others in attendance.

While speaking on the presidential bid of Lamido, the former Ambassador noted that Lamido would be a better president than most of the people who had been presidents in the country, including the incumbent President Muhammadu Buhari.

“This is the time for Sule Lamido to become President of Nigeria. It is his time and there is no stopping him,” he said.

On the call for PDP to change its name to to attract other parties, he stressed that “a leopard doesn’t change its spots,” adding that PDP was ready to welcome its friends fully back on board.

“If party A or B wants to join the PDP, they are free to come. Where they are strong, we will follow them, and where we are strong, they follow us. All politics is local and you can only be rigged where you are weak. If you are strong all over, you can’t be rigged out,” he said.