The Kaduna State People’s Democratic Party, PDP gubernatorial candidate in the 2023 election Hon Isa Ashiru Kudan has denied selling his mandate to the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC during the 2019 election.
He said if it were true that he sold his mandate, he would not have pursued it up to the supreme court being the highest court in the country.
Hon. Isa Ashiru spoke while featuring on a Kaduna-based FM radio station’s breakfast show, Thursday.
Recall that Hon Isa Ashiru represented the Kudan Constituency in the Kaduna State House of Assembly between 1999 -2007 and subsequently served as a member representing the Kudan/Makarfi Federal Constituency in the Federal House of Representatives between 2007-2015.
Thereafter, he decamped to APC where he contested and lost in the governorship primary to Nasir El-Rufai. He later decamped back to PDP and flagged the party’s flag in the 2019 election where he lost to El-Rufai. In that election, El-Rufai polled 1,045,427 votes while Ashiru polled 814,168 votes.
When asked whether he is going to probe El-Rufai’s administration if elected Ashiru said “the loans that were collected especially the 574 million dollars is what we may check.
“According to information available to me, 78% of the loan went for recurrent service which I don’t know why. Some are saying for consultancy and other services.
“But when we come on board, we are going to check it. It is government money and not an individual or group. I don’t want to use the word probe but we will surely have documents to scrutinise and do the needful if we are elected.
“We have a property in Lagos, Abuja, and Kaduna and we are not just going to fold our hands. When we come in, we will check and make corrections where there is a mistake.
“The road from Railway to Nnamdi Azikiwe bypass was a part of the railway line contract. It was not the Kaduna State Government’s effort,” he added.
He however promised to revive sports activities in Kaduna as a deliberate strategy to reduce the issue of youth unemployment in the state.
“Sport is a very important tool that can take away more than half of our unemployed youths. When I was in my 20s -30s, I knew of the KKDs – the UNTLs, UIC’s when we used to troop into Ahmadu Bello Stadium (ABS) in the evenings.
“We will encourage sports and we will make sure that we develop clubs as government and as well support those that are willing to ensure sports return to the city,” he promised.
