Presidency says two governors from Niger Republic cane to Kano to understudy Buhari phenomenon

PRESIDENT Muhammadu Buhari has justified the attendance of two provincial governors from neighbouring Niger Republic at his campaign rally in Kano earlier in the week saying they came to observe how he running the country.

In an unprecedented development, on Thursday, at the All Progressives Congress (APC) rally in Kano, Governor Issa Moussa of Zinder Province and Governor Zakiri Umar of Maradi Province in Niger Republic were in attendance. Fully decked out in APC regalia, they posed for photographs with President Buhari and the Kano State governor Abdullahi Ganduje, speaking off a debate about the possibility of foreigners being used in Nigerian elections.

In a swift reaction, the main opposition the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), berated President Buhari and the APC over the presence of two governors, saying they were mortgaging the future of Nigeria. PDP chairman Prince Uche Secondus, alleged that the APC is now planning to import voters from neighbouring countries for the February 16 presidential election.

However, in response, President Buhari's spokesman Mallam Garba Shehu, said the opposition was just being panicky and jittery. He added that African political office seekers were trooping into the country to understudy the Buhari phenomenon, maintaining that the foreign governors’ presence at the Kano rally has not broken any Nigerian law.

Mallam Shehu said: “Nigeria has been gifted with an honest leader, a man endowed with rare qualities and people are trying to copy that. If our neighbours from Niger come to witness how President Buhari is doing his politics, what is the problem with that? Is there any law that is broken? Or did they see anyone that will buy vote or collect PVC?

“What we want PDP to know is there is a Buhari phenomenon that is sweeping across the entire continent. Candidates for national leadership in each country are doing whatever they can to understand the Buhari phenomenon, to copy it, to institute it.

“When they had the presidential election in Ghana, there was a candidate who branded himself the Buhari of Ghana and when they had the presidential election in Chad last year, there was a Buhari of Chad. They had printed posters with their pictures with Buhari side by side.

“So, it’s jealousy. They are panicky and jealous. It should worry PDP that nobody is coming across the border to understudy PDP.”