Governor Mukhtar Yero, PDP candidate in Kaduna, adopts new strategies to woo voters ahead of April governorship election, writes Senior Correspondent, ISHAYA IBRAHIM.
The campaign of Kaduna State governor and Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) governorship candidate, Mukhtar Yero, is beginning to gather steam, after some slow start.
The momentum, initially favouring the candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Nasir El-Rufai, is gradually changing focus, with some vote-winning strategies being adopted by the Yero administration.
Analysts remark that if the election had taken place as originally scheduled on February 28, El-Rufai would have coasted home to victory, triggering the first change to an opposition party in the state. Kaduna has been a PDP territory since 1999.
But with the shift in the poll, which is now five weeks away, the PDP in the state has been making some incursions into perceived APC stronghold.
As a starter, the governor has allegedly doled out funds to churches burnt in the various religious riots that engulfed the state between 2000 and 2011.
The least amount received by some of the churches is N1 million, while others received as much as N10 million. The impact of these releases is already being felt among some of the Christian voters, especially members of the churches who directly benefitted from the largesse. One of them told TheNiche that the money really excited a number of them.
Before now, Christians in the state, largely residents in Kaduna South, had been spoiling for showdown with Yero over the way he reportedly treated his predecessor, the late Patrick Yakowa, who died in a helicopter crash in December 2012.
Shortly after Yakowa’s death, Yero was quoted to have said that he inherited an empty treasury from his predecessor, a reason he had to discontinue some of the projects in Kaduna South which his predecessor initiated.
But under the aegis of the Concerned Realists of Southern Kaduna Professionals, the people of the area asked the governor to stop persecuting their late son.
Convener of the group, John Danfulani, who spoke at a press conference in Kaduna, had insisted that no government in the world ever met a robust treasury, noting that it took leaders with ideas to create wealth for the sustainability of the state.
Danfulani asked Yero to forget about his dream of re-election in 2015 because the people of the area would not vote for him. He said the governor deliberately scuttled most of the projects initiated by his predecessor and also frustrated efforts at bringing lasting peace to the area. He also alleged that the government under Yero had not deemed it fit to name a significant institution or structure after the late governor.
In Kaduna Central, where Yero’s popularity is also significantly low, the governor has commenced an emergency infrastructure development projects aimed at wooing voters. On February 21, he flagged off the dualisation of 14 kilometre Kawo-Command Junction Road project, to decongest the heavy traffic usually experienced by motorists on the route. He gave the contractors 15 months to complete the projects, an indirect way of telling the people of the area: if you want the project completed, vote for me.
Speaking at the flag-off of the project in Kawo, the unofficial headquarters of the APC, Yero said his administration was totally committed to the infrastructure development of the state and would also complete all ongoing projects inherited from his predecessors.
In Kaduna North, which is El-Rufai’s stronghold, Yero’s posters are now visible, courtesy of street lights and road rehabilitation projects which his administration recently embarked on. Before now, his posters would hardly last for an hour as they would be pulled down by angry residents who felt that he had done nothing to deserve re-election. Even the governor’s alleged threat of matching fire for fire if his campaign posters were removed by persons he claimed to be hired agents of the APC was largely ignored.
However, the presence of street lights, water supply, on-going road rehabilitation in addition to some fence-mending efforts with some leaders of Kaduna North seem to be boosting the governor’s profile.
Despite the governor’s renewed campaign, the APC is still held like a religion in many communities in Kaduna. So, there is a chance that El-Rufai and Yero might be locked in a crucial election battle.