Mark Kicks Against Kwankwaso’s Presidential Ambition

Posted by African Examiner Featured, Latest Headlines Thursday, October 16th, 2014

By Ayodele Afolabi, Abuja

Disturb by the galaxy of star adorning the race for Presidential ticket of the All Progressives Congress (APC), ahead of the 2015 general election, the executive governor of Kano State, Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso stormed the National Assembly yesterday even as the Senate President, David Mark, pointedly told him not to count on his support.

Kano State Governor Rabiu Kwakwaso

Kwankwaso who first met David Mark in his office to curry support for his Presidential aspiration on the platform of APC before meeting all the senators and House of Representatives members on the platform of the party in NASS, got a shocker from Mark who said he cannot support him in anyway.

He said: “It is completely impossible for me to support you. Good as your wishes may be, I can’t grant them. “The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) is the correct platform to contest election and I have always advised the Senators so. If you don’t make it in your new party, feel free to come back to us because you have always belonged on this side.”

He however advised politicians to “play politics without bitterness because God gives power to whom he wants and at any time He wishes.”

Kwankwanso had earlier in his remarks, described Mark’s leadership of the National Assembly as “powerful and responsible”, and said he was in the National Assembly to see the President of the Senate, members and other officers of both chambers as part of his consultation.

But after being turned down by Mark, Kwankwaso later met APC Senators and House of Representatives members by intimating them of his presidential ambition and calling for consensus approach as a way of picking the party’s Presidential candidate for the 2015 election.

“People are worried and very much concerned about the issue of primary elections. Let me tell you that our constitution has provided for consensus, it has also provided for elections. And for those of us who came from PDP, we know the advantages and disadvantages of primary elections,

“But if you look at it critically from 1999 to 2011, every election year, PDP was having primary elections even when we had sitting President in 2003 and 2011, we had primary elections, but all other parties were not doing primary elections in the actual sense of it.

” They sit down and look at faces and say you, does a gaze work yes may be he is number one here but when you go to the field, he may not be number one and that is why I am personally calling for a consensus, but if it doesn’t happen, I believe primary election is also good for the party”.

He explained that he was in the race to help rescue Nigeria from myriads of problems confronting it presently, all according to him, arising from bad leadership.