Don’t host Tinubu’s birthday party in Govt House, Arewa youths warn Ganduje

By ABDULGANIYU ALABI, Kaduna

Arewa Youth Consultative Forum, (AYCF) has said it would take legal action against Kano State Governor, Abdulahi Ganduje over his plans to use the state’s Government House for Bola Tinubu’s birthday, describing it as “an insult on the symbol of authority that the Government House has been to the Kano people for decades”.

A statement signed by the AYCF National President, Alhaji Yerima Shettima, took exception to the choice of Kano Government House as the only place in the North for celebrating Tinubu’s birthday, “a man who kept quiet while Northerners were under attack in Oyo and some parts of the Southwest. While people from Ganduje’s Northern Nigeria were being maimed, Tinubu kept mute even when Northerners’ assets were being destroyed in the guise of hunting down imaginary herdsmen he could not even condemn the violence. Yet this is shamelessly the special guest for Ganduje in Kano Government House.”

They argued that Kano is not only the financial nerve centre of the North but also “the symbol of the region’s cultural and historical pride and we won’t fold our arms and watch this pillar turned into a birthday party venue for people who are not officials of any government in the country”. They asked Ganduje not to allow himself be used as the only governor in the North to avail a symbol of authority for a private citizen’s birthday party, something no Lagos State Governor has ever done to even the most respected politicians or private individuals from the North. “We wish to advise Ganduje to drop this idea of hosting a private individual inside Government House, or we will apply all legitimate means of stopping this embarrassing wastage and denigration of the official abode of a governor for fun”.

(The Guardian)