Source in Abuja and Kano, on Saturday, told The DEFENDER’s enquirer that Wife of the President, Dr. Aisha Muhammadu Buhari, did not walk out on the Governor of Kano State, Dr. Umar Abdullahi Ganduje.
The sources responded to an enquiry by The DEFENDER to ascertain a report in Daily Nigerian with headline “At APC rally in Kano, Aisha Buhari walks out on Ganduje”. They said at no point in time did Mrs Buhari show discontent or contempt to the North’s most populous state governor.
Daily Nigerian reported that: “The wife of the President Aisha Buhari on Saturday walked out on the governor of Kano State, Abdullahi Ganduje, at the APC Women and Youth Presidential Campaign rally in Kano.
“Mrs Buhari kick-started the rally in Kano with a call on women and youths to vote for the APC in the general elections.
“DAILY NIGERIAN gathered that no sooner had Mr Ganduje started delivering his speech at the rally than she stood up and left, creating commotion.
“It was gathered that soon after the drama, most of the crowd also join the wife of the president to leave Sani Abacha Stadium, the venue of the event.
“Other sources said it was a breach of protocol on the side of the state government for scheduling the governor’s speech after the wife of the president.”
But The DEFENDER, upon investigations into the report, gathered that Daily Nigerian did exactly the dictate of its publisher, Mallam Jafar Jafar, who, according to one of our sources, is working assiduously for Senator Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso in ensuring that the political fortunes of President Muhammadu Buhari and Governor Gaduje are destroyed.
One of the ways to achieve it, the source said, is what his online newspaper has done “trying to cause break of love between the President and the governor by setting the two leaders against each starting with concocted contempt for the governor by the President’s wife.”
An Abuja respondent said: “Let me tell you, Jafar Jafar is Daily Nigerian President. If you go to his page, there was a person that bears similar to his name Jafar S. Jafar who was appointed into the campaign committee, he now carried that on his page and he said that he was the one that he is not interested in that appointment. And I went to that page and told him that you are not the one but somebody else. He said ‘no there is no co-incidence’ and that he is the one.
“Until we got the person who was appointed to the committee to send his picture to Jafar Jafar to let him know that he wasn’t the one that Mama appointed and that this is the person that was appointed to that committee and that they only have the same name. And the person has to go to a radio station in Kano to lambast Jafar Jafar for claiming that he was the one who was appointed,” he said.
He continued: “So, there is something going on. You know he is a Kwankwaso’s person. He just want to cause a rift between the two of them (the President’s family and the governor of Kano) just for person interest. And I have radio record of short interview by that Jafar S. Jafar appointed granted in Hausa which I will send to you,” he said.
What really happened in Kano
“What happened was that they called Mama to come and deliver her address. She finished her address and she left the podium. As she was leaving the podium the governor was already there. They now said the governor would do vote of thank. So, is what Jafar saying is that after the woman had finished talking and the governor was doing his vote of thank the woman should stay there?
“Even after the governor finished his vote of thanks, his wife escorted the Wife of the President to her car because it was getting late in the evening and still went back there because the programme didn’t end there as the governor continued the programme with his wife.”
He said Jafar Jafar “is just trying to be mischievous.”
On Thursday, President Muhammadu Buhari inaugurated a-700 member women and youth campaign team chaired by his wife, Aisha with a call on them to embark on house to house campaign for his re-election.
The campaign team which drew membership from across the country was constituted by his wife and the wife of the vice president, Dolapo Osinbajo, as co-chair.
Inaugurating the committee at the State House Conference Hall, Mr Buhari said the APC led government had made numerous landmark achievements, assuring that change struggle remained unshaken until Nigeria was put on track to assume its rightful place among the comity of nations.
“The Women and Youth Presidential Campaign Team being inaugurated today (yesterday) was constituted to support the Presidential Campaign Council which I chair. This shows the importance with which we view the role of women and youths as the backbone of the Nigerian electorate.
“As such, they should be the drivers of our campaign, more so, they are the major direct and indirect beneficiaries of our social investment programmes. In carrying out this assignment, I expect from members of this team the same loyalty and support which you exhibited in 2015,” he said.
