Governor Nasir el Rufai of Kaduna State has picked his running mate for his second tenure under the All Progressives Congress and it is none other tha
Governor Nasir el Rufai of Kaduna State has picked his running mate for his second tenure under the All Progressives Congress and it is none other than a Muslim, Dr. Hadiza Abubakar Balarabe. The Executive Secretary of the Kaduna State Primary Health Care Development Agency, Balarabe is from Sanga Local Government Area in the Christian dominated Southern part of Kaduna State. The incumbent Deputy Governor, Mr. Barnabas Bala, has opted to contest the Southern Kaduna senatorial election in 2019.
Announcing the nomination in a statement on Friday, Samuel Aruwan, spokesman of the governor, said the choice of Dr. Hadiza Balarabe as running mate was a continuation of El-Rufai’s deliberate policy of promoting women. The statement said “Kaduna State Governor Nasir El-Rufai has announced the selection of Dr. Hadiza Balarabe as his running mate for the 2019 general election.
“The choice of Dr. Hadiza Balarabe as running mate continues Malam Nasir El-Rufai’s deliberate policy of promoting women. There are five female commissioners in his 14-person cabinet, a feat not attained even by governors that had much larger cabinets. This is the first time in the history of Kaduna State that a major political party will select a woman as running mate”.
The statement said since her appointment in February 2016, as the Executive Secretary of the Kaduna State Primary Health Care Development Agency, Balarabe has helped in revitalising the primary health care delivery in the state.
Prior to joining the Kaduna State Government, Dr. Hadiza Balarabe was Director of Public Health in the FCT. She studied Medicine at the University of Maiduguri, and graduated in 1988. She was a Senior Registrar at the Ahmadu Bello University Teaching Hospital before joining the services of the FCT in 2004.”
Before the nomination of Balarabe, rumours of el-Rufai’s Muslim – Muslim ticket had been trending for some time, with some government officials dismissing it as mischievous and a blackmail by opposition politicians.
Thisday
